


Break Us New

by jedia_lo21



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Blood, Blood and Injury, Car Accidents, Emotional Hurt, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hospitals, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, Injury, Long-Haired Victor Nikiforov, M/M, Major Character Injury, Major Illness, Pain, Protective Victor Nikiforov, Surgery, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-02-15 23:40:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 31,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13041948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedia_lo21/pseuds/jedia_lo21
Summary: Doctor Viktor Nikiforov has a perfect track record. Each and every one of his patients leaves his hospital cared for, healthy, and alive. But his devotion to his work draws his attention away from his beautiful husband who waits patiently everyday for his lover to spend just ONE day, one hour, one minute with him.When Viktor's husband gets into a car accident and dies under Viktor's care, the Russian remains only a shell of the man he once was, devoting his aching heart to a new job as an ambulance assistant to save injured lives (like his husband's) immediately in the field. But his ambulance hits another a car, a car belonging to a beautiful man that stirs Viktor's soul into life once more.The problem? Yuuri is a beautiful angel who had a heart transplant. And he doesn't have long to live. The other problem? Viktor's fallen deeply in love.Viktor can't help being broken at every turn, but he wants to make everything right, starting with Yuuri.Based on Daniel Yu's film, "All About Love" (2005)





	1. Our World Caves In On Us

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS: There is a graphic scene toward the end with lots of descriptions of blood! Don't read if you're queasy. This is a story with a doctor and a hospital. Injuries happen. You have been warned...
> 
> ALSO!!! Time is very important in this story!!!!!!!
> 
> If anyone reading this is a doctor or nurse or knows how medical processes work, I'm very sorry. I did as much research as I could, but I didn't want to read the Cardiology textbook from cover to cover...

**Aleksandr**

**December 22, 2014**

**8:00 PM**

The phone on the side table buzzed. Aleksandr turned sharply to face the little vibrating object making such a racket on the expensive wood next to him. Was it him? Was it really him? It couldn’t be. From his place curled against the armrest of the sofa, Aleksandr stretched his fingers out, feeling for the little phone sitting just in reach of his fingertips. The screen was flashing with the photo of him and Viktor standing on the Potseluev Bridge, lit by the soft glow of the streetlights and St. Isaac’s Cathedral in the background.

 

Aleksandr’s eyes softened and he quickly accepted the call, trying to keep the giddiness from his voice as he answered. “ _Privyet_ , my love. Why are you calling me?”

 

There was laughter on the other end of the line and the soft timber of his lover’s voice drawled back, “What? I can’t call my husband? I thought you would be happy to hear from me.” Aleksandr could picture Viktor pouting against the phone, blue eyes filling with tears. His voice reflected the whines of a petulant child.

 

“Of course I want to hear from you,” Aleksandr chuckled, resting more comfortably against the sofa. He curled his fingers in the fabric of the pillow laid out on his stomach. “The fact is, you never call me. What is so special about right now?”

 

Viktor’s voice crescendoed in excitement. “My shift is almost done. I should be getting off around 8:45 or so. Remember when I said we could have dinner tonight? I put in a reservation for us at Café Gallery at 9:15. You’ve always wanted us to try it out.”

 

Aleksandr let out a choked gasp. “Really? We’re going out tonight?” He could hear the amusement in Viktor’s voice as he gave a smiling assent.

 

“Is 8:45 good to come pick me up?”

 

Aleksandr rolled his eyes but grinned at his beautiful, forgetful husband. “Yes, dear. I’ll be there. No later than 8:45, alright? No more extra shifts! I mean it.”

 

“Yes, yes. I won’t forget this time, _Sasha_. But I need to go. I will see you soon, love. _Ya lyublyu tebya_!”

 

Aleksandr repeated the farewell and clicked the phone off. He lay on the sofa for a moment, grinning stupidly at the ceiling. Oh how long he’d been waiting for a moment like this. It seemed like forever since he’d spent an evening with his husband, dining in a fancy restaurant, and talking about things other than work. Viktor was never home, always taking extra shifts at the hospital. Of course Aleksandr loved his dear husband for being so devoted to his job and helping people in need. But it had been so long….so long since they’d had a date together.

 

Aleksandr pressed his lips to the silver ring glinting on his right hand. Then he leaped from the sofa and into the bedroom, haphazardly throwing on his best suit. He was out the door in minutes, slamming halfway down the stairs in a mad hurry before he realized the keys to the car were still on the counter in the kitchen. Rolling his eyes, he turned back, taking the steps two at a time.

 

 

**Viktor**

**December 22, 2014**

**8:12 PM**

Viktor set his phone down, smiling at the excited traces of Aleksandr’s voice still ringing in his ears. He loved when his husband was happy like this. Aleksandr always tried to hide how affected he was by Viktor, but the silver-haired Russian could always tell when his husband was holding back from screaming with joy.

 

The door to his office opened and Yakov stepped in, scowling. “Nikiforov! Look alive. Where is the report for the patient in room-”

 

“Yes, yes, Yakov. Everything is taken care of.  Mr. Vasiliev was referred to Cardiology. The paperwork is with them and a copy with me. But if you really _must_ know all the details, he was rushed in with a myocardial infarction and transferred to the resuscitation area under the direction of my staff. He was given oxygen and 30 milligrams of morphine. I performed a quick ECG to test for ST Segment Elevation, but the charts were not conclusive of the need for surgery. Oh, and I had to withhold the bucal glyceryl trinitrate, because apparently Mr. Vasiliev is prescribed with drugs for erectile dysfunction-”

 

“ _Zatknis_! Enough, Viktor. I didn’t need to hear all that! As long as the account was given to proper hands, I don’t want to hear the details.”

 

There was a moment of silence broken by the resigned softening of Yakov’s eyes and a gruff, “Dammit, boy. You did good.”

 

Viktor beamed at the doctor who had raised him from childhood. Yakov always came off as a brutish, hateful old man to everyone who met him. Most of the emergency room staff was terrified of him, in fact. They tiptoed around him hesitantly, fearful of being yelled at and stuttered when giving their reports. Except Viktor. Yakov was like a father to him. He could never be scared of the old doctor. He was just a grumpy old man. Sure Yakov was stern and always found something that Viktor did to scold him about, but he loved Viktor like a son. The silver-haired man was sure of it.

 

Yakov strode over to where Viktor was sitting behind his desk and clapped him loudly on the back. “Viktor, there is something important I’d like to discuss with you-”

 

There was a shout from the hall. The door to Viktor’s office slammed open and hit the wall with a loud BANG! Georgi stumbled in, almost tripping over the doorway as he cried, “Viktor! Urgent patient. Trauma case. Some motor vehicle accident!”

 

Viktor shot up from his chair and down the hall, Georgi and Yakov at his heels. His eyes narrowed, face slipping into a mask devoid of emotion. All memory of his Aleksandr’s happiness was erased from his mind. He had a job to do and a patient to save. There was no time to ponder anything else. Doctors had to devote _all_ attention to _every_ patient. One misstep, and Viktor could seriously injure an already hurt victim.

 

The group caught sight of the patient as he was wheeled into the resuscitation bay. He looked like a teenager, not much older than 18 or 19, with dark hair styled in an undercut. The staff was already beginning to remove the remaining pieces of the boy’s leather jacket when Viktor stepped in. “I need 30 seconds of silence for the EMS report,” he ordered.

 

One of the staff lowering the boy from the stretcher into the medical bed responded, “This is Otabek, a 19-year-old male that was travelling on a motorized bike. He was involved in a hit and run. We did have a positive loss of consciousness, reported by the 112 call-in, but he’s been awake since we got him.”

 

Viktor nodded. “Alright. Get the cardiac monitors on him. Check blood pressure.”

 

The staff was already in motion, and for a moment, there was only sweet harmony in the shuffling of feet, ripping of Velcro to the sphygmomanometer, and readings being shouted by members of the staff over Otabek’s bed. Moments like these, moments of perfect union in which everyone had a job and endeavored to follow it, made Viktor feel that all his hard work and devotion to his hospital career were not in vain. He was in his element, tranquil in the knowledge that everything would be alright. He could trust himself and his staff to save lives one patient at a time.

 

Viktor leaned over, tucking the loose silver strands of hair that had fallen out of his pony tail behind his ears. He placed a gentle hand on Otabek’s shoulder and stared intently into the boy’s brown eyes. “Listen, Otabek. I’m Dr. Nikiforov. I’m your attending physician. I’m here to help you. Do you have pain anywhere?”

 

The teenager watched him, eyes wide. “Back,” he finally mumbled.

 

Damn. Spinal injuries were severe, delicate. Depending on the case, they could be untreatable or require intense physical therapy.

 

“Three to me. I want him turned over on his side. Gently! Possible injury to the spine.”

 

The EMT who had given the report nodded and began the countdown. Otabek was lifted gently and turned over. Viktor stepped closer, inspecting the skin for abnormalities. There was slight bruising peppering along the column of his back, some redness. No swelling. That was a good sign. He gently pressed along the lower back, asking Otabek to rate his pain. Nothing was too inhibitive or worrying.

 

Viktor removed the stethoscope from around his neck and pressed it along Otabek’s back and abdomen, listening for irregularities, but nothing seemed out of place. There were no signs of blockages or obstructions. But he wanted to be sure.

 

“Alright, turn him over. I want him taken to the trauma centre. Allow their team to take over. I want CT Scans and full reports. He’s my patient.”

 

There were voices of assent and a mad flurry of bodies and voices. Otabek was lifted onto a stretcher and wheeled out of the room, multiple members of the staff following. Viktor watched him disappear around the corner in the direction of the trauma center. A hand on his shoulder made him startle. Yakov had stepped into the room and was standing at his back.

 

“Your leadership skills have certainly improved, Vitya.”

 

Viktor turned to him grinning. “What are you talking about, Yakov? I’ve _always_ been the best head doctor here.”

 

Yakov’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t push it, boy.”

 

The silver-haired man threw back his head, laughing. “Yakov, you forgetful old man. It was because of your infinitely superior guidance that I am even here now.” Yakov’s eyes softened, tension draining from his body. “Of course, most of my success is due to how naturally gifted I am-”

 

Yakov immediately straightened and glared. The growl came with warning, “ _Vitya_!”

 

Viktor turned to him, mouth lifting partly into a heart-shaped smile. He chuckled, “Ah! Yakov. What did you want to tell me before?”

 

“You’re an idiot, Viktor. In any case, I received a call a week ago from the medical director of the Children’s hospital in St. Petersburg. He wants to meet with you tonight.”

 

Viktor frowned. “I’m sorry, Yakov, but I can’t.”

 

“I didn’t ask if you wanted to meet him. I’m telling you that you _will_ meet with him. This is important, Viktor.”

 

The silver-haired Russian frowned and whined, “But Yakov! I promised Aleksandr that we’d have a dinner date tonight! I don’t want to talk to the medical director. I want to talk with my Aleksandr!”

 

Yakov leveled him with a glare. “ _Call_ Aleksandr. _Tell him_ you can’t make it tonight, and be in my office, _sitting across from the medical director_ in 3 minutes or so help me, I will send you back to the streets with only the clothes you’re wearing.”

 

Viktor pouted. Of course he wasn’t worried about Yakov disowning him. That would never happen. Besides, Viktor was an adult and lived in his own apartment with his own husband. But there were certainly other punishments Yakov could inflict on him. Like demoting him from attending physician to fellow or resident, stripping him of the ability to call the shots and make personal decisions in the Emergency Room.

 

Viktor winced.

 

However, breaking the news to Aleksandr wasn’t going to be fun either.

 

 

**Aleksandr**

**December 22, 2014**

**8:15 PM**

Aleksandr turned the car into the hospital staff parking lot and hunted desperately for an open spot. Damn Viktor and his desire to bike to work rather than drive! The only empty spaces available were in the back of the lot, farthest from the hospital’s entrance. And it was a far walk to the building.

 

He contemplated getting out and walking into the ER, sitting in the waiting room, pretending to be another patient waiting to be called in to see a doctor. The staff knew his name, of course. He sat in that room quite often. But he hated their pitying looks when he’d come in and collapse into the plastic chairs braced against the windows and wait for a husband that would most likely stumble in through the door, panting out another excuse that they couldn’t go out this time. Sometimes Viktor even forgot to tell his husband that something had happened to cancel their plans. Aleksandr hated those times even more when he wasted away against the waiting room windows, hours ticking endlessly by, battery draining from his phone. Fruitlessly waiting for a husband that wouldn’t show. Always, always disappointed.

 

But this time they would go out. Viktor had even reserved a table at a fancy restaurant, committed to a time to eat. He wouldn’t back out. Aleksandr would finally get to hold hands with his husband over the dinner table, finally seduce him with bedroom eyes over sensual pasta-and-cheesecake-eating, and finally fall into bed with him, satisfied and loved at the end of their date. He wanted to kiss Viktor and curl into his body as they walked through the cold streets of Moscow, warm and safe and happy. He wanted to hear his husband’s soft voice as they spoke with each other, a voice not filtered through phone calls and texts.

 

That reminded him. Aleksandr eagerly took out his phone and called Viktor.

 

“ _Privyet_ , my beautiful, _darling_ husband!”

 

That should’ve been the first sign that something was wrong. Viktor was often extra with his expressions of endearment, but they usually didn’t sound so pleading unless Viktor was trying to alleviate incoming bad news.

 

“Viktor, my love,” Aleksandr laughed. “I can’t wait to go out with you tonight. I’m sorry. I was so excited. I just couldn’t wait any longer.”

 

There was silence on the other end of the line. Then, with a sigh, “ _Sasha_ , did you come here early? Are you in the parking lot?”

 

Aleksandr laughed. “I know. I know. You said 8:45, but I couldn’t wait any longer. Do you think Yakov would let you end your shift earlier? I’m sure Georgi wouldn’t mind holding down the fort for half an hour longer.”

 

Viktor sighed. “Darling, you know I can’t.”

 

Aleksandr rolled his eyes. His silly husband was such a perfectionist. Viktor’s work at the hospital was given 110% effort, devotion, and love. He really cared about saving people and ensuring that his patients were well-off and completely healthy when released from the hospital. Viktor woke up early each and every morning to shower and bike to the hospital before the sun even rose, working and working until he came stumbling home after midnight. But he never complained about being tired or about the amount of work the hospital expected from him. He just rose to greet another day with the same smile.

 

Viktor told him often that he’d always been attracted to hospital life, especially having a career in emergency medicine. The environment in the ER was fast-paced. People were always moving there, and the center was always filling up with new patients, each with different stories. Every person that came in through the double doors was a surprise. And Viktor loved surprises. He tackled every patient’s case with determination and no fear. Even his track record was perfect. Not a single death under his care…

 

“I know, Viktor. But I’m not opposed to waiting here for a while. I’m very good at waiting, you know.”

Aleksandr expected to hear a laugh from his husband at the little jab. But Viktor was silent. Aleksandr’s heart shrank a little. Something was amiss. “Viktor, what is it? What’s wrong? What happened? ”

 

His husband groaned on the other end of the line. “I’m so sorry, _Sasha_ , darling, sweetheart. I truly am, but I-”

 

Aleksandr’s voice was cold as he finished, “But you can’t go tonight. Is that right, Viktor? You need to cancel on me again? You need to cancel on us, _again_?”

 

Viktor let out a quiet sound of pain. “ _Sasha_ , please, _please_ understand. There are important doctors I need to meet with tonight. My job depends on it. I _promise_ we can have our date-”

 

“Tomorrow,” Aleksandr finished again. “You say ‘tomorrow’ all the time, Viktor. In fact, if I add it to my journal right now, that’s 180 times you’ve told me ‘tomorrow.’ 180 ‘tomorrows.’ When is it going to be _now_ , love?”

 

Viktor was quiet for a moment. “180, huh? I thought it would’ve been more.”

 

Aleksandr closed his eyes and rested his forehead on the steering wheel softly. Tears pooled in his eyes, painful and blinding. His throat ached with the agony of his quiet sobs. Through his blurry vision, he could see his tie swinging against the steering wheel, reminding him of something he couldn’t have. Working to rein in his tears, he finally spoke, voice dead and soft with misery, “You know I’ll wait for you always, love…. I’ll see you tonight when you come back from work.”

 

Viktor sighed in relief. “Thank you, darling. I’ll make it up to you. I promise I will.”

 

Aleksandr smiled through the pain shuddering out from his heart and spreading through his body like shards of glass tearing into his flesh. “You better, Viktor.”

 

There was a _click_ as Viktor disconnected the call. Aleksandr tossed his phone into the passenger seat and started the car again. He tugged his journal out from the glove box and flipped to the most recent entry. The entry from yesterday.

 

** December 21 **

**179th tomorrow**

 

Sighing, he uncapped his marker and wrote:

 

** December 22 **

**180th tomorrow**

 

Closing the journal, Aleksandr contemplated how he could spend the rest of his night now without Viktor. He could drive around the city longer and pick up some food to take back to the apartment. Drowning his sorrows in take-out and the drama of a Romance movie didn’t seem too bad. Perhaps when Viktor gets back to the apartment late tonight, he’ll tell him about the plot and the characters and the details of the story as Viktor nods off in bed next to him. A greater plan than nothing.

 

Aleksandr pulled out of the space and inched up to the security box, pressing the button to lift the bar blocking the exit and entrance to the parking lot. He eased the car out from the asphalt space and turned onto the road leading home.

 

Shutting the car off had been a mistake. Aleksandr shuddered and reached for the buttons controlling the heat. Damn Russia and its harrowingly freezing weather! He hadn’t parked the car longer than 3 minutes and already the vehicle was an ice box!

 

Concentrated on the buttons, he didn’t even see the car on the other side of the road that spun out of control and careened hard into his side of the car.

 

There was just glass and pain and silence.

 

 

**Viktor**

**December 22, 2014**

**9:15 PM**

Viktor shook hands with the medical director. “Thank you for the offer, Doctor Ivanov. I’ll certainly consider it for the future. Just give me a few days to talk it over with my husband and I can get back to you.”

 

Doctor Ivanov smiled and gripped his hand tightly, “I look forward to speaking with you again, Doctor Nikiforov. Have a good night.”

 

The door clicked behind him and Viktor sighed, slouching low in his seat. The meeting turned out to be a business proposal, a job offer in working for the children’s hospital as an assisting physician. The offer was certainly generous. He would get paid almost double the salary he earns now and would get to work with children for a change rather than adults. He would have to discuss it with Aleksandr.

 

Viktor rose from the seat and strode out of Yakov’s office, heading to the trauma centre to check on Otabek. Hopefully the team had cleared him for release with no complications.

 

There was a mad flurry of activity in the wing, doctors and nurses flying down the hallway, shouting orders. Strange. He hadn’t heard much chaos from patients being rushed into the emergency room. Was Otabek alright?

 

The nurse at the main desk looked up as he entered through the glass sliding doors, and her face drained abruptly of its color. “D-doctor Nikiforov. May I ask why you’re here?”

 

Viktor stared at her, dumbfounded. The red-headed woman had never protested against his entering this section of the hospital to check on patients transferred from the ER into Trauma. It was his job to monitor every step of his patients’ recovery processes after all. “I’m here to check on Otabek. Is he alright? Was he cleared?”

 

The nurse’s cheeks bloomed again with color. “Right. The patient was cleared and turned over to Georgi.”

 

Viktor sighed and nodded.

 

The door to the trauma rooms opened and Yakov rushed out, stopping abruptly when he saw Viktor standing at the nurse’s desk.

 

“Yakov, what is going on? Why were you in the trauma rooms?”

 

The old doctor paused, pain in his eyes. Viktor’s heart clenched. Something was dreadfully wrong. Yakov wouldn’t look at him like this if something wasn’t wrong. But what was it? What happened?

 

“Yakov, please. Don’t look at me like that. You’re scaring me.”

 

That shook the old doctor out of his stupor. His father figure sighed and drew Viktor away from the desk, hand firm on his shoulder. “Viktor. I need you to listen to me. Listen to me calmly. Promise me you won’t make a scene.”

 

Viktor gave him an astonished look and opened his mouth to protest, but Yakov glared, eyebrows raised expectantly. The silver-haired Russian frowned and nodded. His heart was picking up speed in his chest, drumming painfully against his ribs. He could feel Yakov’s hesitance like an impending storm. Something awful was about to happen, and the harrowing tension in the air was making the room spin. If Viktor didn’t hear what tragic thing had happened soon…

 

Yakov pressed his palms to Viktor’s cheeks, staring deeply into his eyes. His voice was painfully calm as he murmured, “Aleksandr’s been in an accident, Vitya. A car hit him just after he left the hospital-”

 

“Yakov,” Viktor whispered.

 

“-and he was rushed into the trauma centre-”

 

“Yakov, don’t”

 

“-for major injuries to his brain, torso, and abdomen-”

 

“Stop. Yakov, I can’t. Please-”

 

“He was unconscious before the ambulance even got to him. The trauma team managed to remove the glass embedded in his body and treat his visible wounds-”

 

“Stop.”

 

“But he has slipped into a coma. We’ve hooked him up to life support. He’s having trouble breathing on his own-

 

“Stop.”

 

“-and we are performing multiple tests to check if there are any signs of brain damage-”

 

“STOP!” Viktor seized the doctor’s wrists, tears pouring over his cheeks and blurring his vision. The room was spinning so fast and the rushing in his ears sounded like a giant wave gathering itself to slam into him and tug him down into a rush of misery and pain and never let him swim to the surface and _breathe_.

 

How was it possible to feel a pain like this? How was it possible to categorize and describe the horror of Yakov’s words shredding his eardrums and sinking talons into his heart?

 

Viktor opened his mouth to beg and plead for his husband’s life, his beautiful, caring Aleksandr dying because of _him_. But he only wailed, sinking to his knees.

 

Yakov closed his eyes and sighed deeply. “I’m so sorry, Vitya.” He embraced the heartbroken, silver-haired Russian as the boy wept into his stomach. “I’m so sorry.”

 

***

**Viktor**

**December 25, 2014**

**8:00 PM**

Viktor pressed his hands into Aleksandr’s feet, kneading the pale skin deeply and sending life back into the immobile limbs. His hands moved steadily up the ankles, adding firm and soft pressure to the calves as he coaxed the muscles into loosening. Viktor kept his eyes on Aleksandr’s face, watching for any signs of movement. But the quiet hiss of the ventilator and the rhythmic _beep_ of the heart monitor were the only signs of life to answer.

 

Aleksandr looked so pale and broken in the hospital bed. His skin was pasty white, eyes circled by purple, bruise-like bags. The skin of Aleksandr’s face was stretched tight over his cheekbones, giving him a haunted, death-like shape to his face. The beautiful brown hair his lover was so proud of lay limp and stringy against his cheeks.

 

Viktor rose from his position kneeling at Aleksandr’s feet and rested his palm against the sleeping man’s cheek. He laid a soft kiss against his lover’s temple and trailed his fingers down Aleksandr’s neck and over his arm to grasp the still fingers resting against the bed sheets. He raised the limp hand to his lips and pressed another sweet kiss to the silver ring glinting on Aleksandr’s bony finger. Viktor sat for a moment watching the machine breathe for his lover. The oxygen mask rested over most of his husband’s face, uncannily resembling a parasitic alien from some horror movie sucking the life right out of his lover.

 

With a sigh, Viktor placed one last lingering kiss to his husband’s cheek before walking to the side table near the door where a set of towels lay folded. He dipped one into a small tub of water, squeezed it, and ran the cloth gently over Aleksandr’s arms and legs. Viktor unwittingly feared that if he applied too much pressure, his husband’s body would give way and break and Aleksandr would leave his side forever.

 

The silver-haired man continued his ministrations, mind easing into the tranquility of repeating a task over and over and over again until the mindlessness made him forget where he was. But soon his mind tugged at him. He needed more water to wash Aleksandr. The tub was empty.

 

Viktor laid the towel aside and took up the empty bowl, exiting the room swiftly and heading down a flight of stairs to the storage room. Towels stacked in neat rows lined the shelves of the cupboards set into the wall above the sinks. The silver-haired Russian placed the tub into one of the sinks and turned the dial.

 

No water.

 

Viktor gave a frustrated growl before trying the next sink and the next. What was happening? Why was there no water filtered into this room? Which idiot in maintenance overlooked the storage room?

 

A small spout set into far wall above the counter caught his eye. He placed the empty tub beneath it and turned the handle. The water came out slow and trickling, fast droplets hitting the plastic bowl with sharp _thwacks_. Viktor groaned and massaged the bridge of his nose. Of course. At this rate, it would take years to fill up the tub. He raised his arm and looked at the watch his Aleksandr had gifted him on their second anniversary.

 

8:20 PM

 

Viktor watched the slow progress for a moment before sinking against the opposite counter.

 

He had been awake for 3 days, refusing to sleep lest Aleksandr wake up. Viktor wanted to be the first to greet his husband when those beautiful brown eyes opened. He wanted to rest his forehead against his lover’s and feel Aleksandr breathe against his skin without the mechanical feeder. He wanted to whisper, ‘I love you,’ into the ears of his husband, and hear the croak of a response as his lover repeated the words back. When was the last time he had ever spoken those words and meant them with all the earnest love of his soul? When was the last time Aleksandr knew he was loved unconditionally, without a doubt? 

 

Viktor closed his eyes with a sigh, imagining what it would be like to carry Aleksandr over the threshold of their apartment like the echoes of their wedding night. He would lay his husband in their bed and pamper him, massaging his aching limbs and kissing his skin gently. He would attempt to cook homely meals for his Aleksandr and risk setting the kitchen on fire, laughing at the wrinkling of his husband’s nose when he took the first bite of over-salted food. He would spend all his vacation days tending to his heart, the vacation days that had just kept adding up throughout his life when he would put his lover down and focus on his career first.

 

Never again. Never again would he spurn Aleksandr. He’d promised them a romantic dinner at the Gallery Café and he would keep it.

 

Viktor drifted in and out of his imaginations, letting his body relax to the soft sound of the water in the tub and the warm tones of his husband as they dined.

 

The doctor’s body relaxed, lines of stress softening from his face as he drifted to sleep.

 

The water in the bowl spilled over.

 

 

 

**8:28 PM**

In the hospital bed, one floor above the storage room, Aleksandr’s body seized. The Russian man coughed hard, sending blood splattering against the sides of oxygen mask. The red fluid continued to bubble up his chest and into his throat, blocking the passage of air from the ventilator tube feeding oxygen into his lungs. The two organs were already flooded with the thick blood. Something permanent had cracked deep in his body and was filling up the lungs with dripping red.

 

Aleksandr’s body spasmed, trying to force itself into equilibrium. It recognized the blood that had once sustained life now as a foreign liquid, killing and poisoning. The body heaved. Get it _out_ of his lungs and up his throat. _Out_. It needed to go _out_.

 

But the oxygen mask was already caked in the clotted blood, sealing the lips shut.

 

Aleksandr was swiftly suffocating, betrayed by his own body’s push for survival.

 

The heart rate monitor was crescendoing, alerting a passing nurse to the frantic noise. She called down the hall, voice firm and demanding. The staff heeded the orders, surrounding the dying man in a flurry of limbs and hands and fingers that swiftly ripped the mask away and began CPR.

 

The monitor was still pushing on, sending out wild _beeps_ that would poison most of the staff’s nightmares for weeks afterward. The rhythmic drive of Aleksandr’s heart was quickly and chaotically unraveling at the seams. The patterns of his heartbeat were too unpredictable; too fast, too slow, skipped beat, too fast, skip, too slow, too fast, too slow, skip, skip, too slow, skip, too fast, skip, skip, skip, skip.

 

A horrible wail from the monitor. A shout from the doctor. The high whine of the defibrillators.

 

_Shock._

          Clear.

_Shock._

                              Clear.

_Shock_

_Shock_

_Shock..._

 

Silence. Deafening ringing from the heart monitor.

 

The room took a collective breath. A nurse sighed. A doctor gently lifted the white cloth over Aleksandr’s face. Dead. Approximately 8:30 PM.

 

Downstairs, Viktor startled awake with a gasp.

 

The Russian man’s head turned wildly to face the tub overflowing with water. Somehow, the spout had abruptly started to gush water out in a thick stream and now the liquid was everywhere, pooling at his feet and lapping against the walls.

 

Something was wrong. In Viktor’s heart, he knew something was wrong.

 

The silver-haired doctor sprang to his feet. He needed to get to Aleksandr.

 

Aleksandr. _Aleksandr._

 

His black work shoes slipped on the slick floor.

 

For a moment, there was only stillness. Viktor’s eyes met the ceiling above him. His body was weightless in the air, heart stilling, everything shuddering to a painful hush.

 

And then he slammed hard into the tile, the shock of the blow reverberating painfully through his spine. He already felt the choking sensation of air trapped in his lungs before his head recoiled and struck the floor.

 

The darkness rushed to meet his eyes and Viktor went limp.

 

Light pierced his eyelids only moments later.

 

The doctor groaned as pain split his temple and travelled down his body. Everything ached. His body was heaving in delight at being able to breathe again. It took painful, gasping breaths, before the heart managed to calm enough to regulate its drumming.

 

_Aleksandr…_

 

Viktor shot up to his hands and knees and then stood, wobbling on unsteady legs. Blood trickled down his forehead and into his eyes, blinding him, and turning the room a sick shade of red. He took one step. And then another. And another. And then he was tearing out of the storage room, up the stairs, and through the door into the hall.

 

Aleksandr’s room was just around the corner. Viktor would get there in seconds and see that his husband was fine. He’d get there and see the form of his husband resting peacefully in the hospital bed. Everything would be fine.

 

But a medical bed was wheeled out from around the corner. There was a noticeable lump wrapped in white bed sheets. One of them covering a face. The face. Aleksandr’s face.

 

Viktor’s heart seized painfully.

 

_No. Please no. No. No._

 

The hospital bed was ushered along by a nurse, her eyes downcast on the limp patient. She didn’t even see Viktor.

 

_Stop. Stop. Stop it._

 

Viktor took one step back. Two. Three.

 

_It’s not true. No._

 

Another step.

 

_Aleksandr….don’t._

 

Another step.

 

_I promise, I swear. I promise._

 

Step. Step. Step.

 

_No._

 

Another

 

_I promised._

 

Step

 

_Stop._

 

Another.

 

_Please!_

 

Hands caught him. Viktor hadn’t even known he was falling, falling, falling to the floor. His knees ached. His heart hurt. His head was spinning.

 

There was a voice calling to him, echoing with the ringing in his ears. So much noise. So much pain. How could a person possibly feel so much pain? How? How?

 

“Viktor!” Yakov was in front of him, lips moving, saying something Viktor couldn’t understand. But the old man’s eyes said enough. _You’ve done it this time. You messed up. You damn idiot. Perfect track record...no. Not anymore. One death on his watch. Aleksandr…_

 

_Please...I promise..._

 

***

 

**Viktor**

**November 25, 2016**

**8:27 PM**

“Viktor! Look alive.” JJ’s voice cut through the stillness of Viktor’s mind. The silver-haired Russian jerked against his seat and threw a glare at his partner for disturbing him. JJ met his eyes with challenge, daring Viktor to open his mouth and say something. The Russian man pursed his lips, but looked away, out the passenger window instead. Water droplets were sliding slowly down the glass.

 

“So, Viktor. As I was saying, Isabella and I were out on our dinner date, _holding hands_ , mind you, on the table. And the waiter had some damn nerve putting his hand on _Isabella’s shoulder_ while she was ordering. He didn’t even-”

 

Viktor sighed and drowned JJ’s voice out his mind again. He couldn’t focus on the words and he didn’t really care what his partner was even telling him. His heart was stirring painfully in his chest, remembering, lingering.

 

Everything about today hurt. Viktor’s life was filled with misery any day of the year. But this day was the hardest.

 

His watch beeped. Viktor looked down as the dials hit the 8 and the 6 on the face of the clock. It was 8:30 PM. _That time_. That awful time. Viktor sucked in a sharp gasp of pain, almost doubling over in his seat. _Aleksandr…_

 

JJ let out a cry and Viktor’s head shot up just as the ambulance struck the side of a car, sending the other, smaller vehicle, careening into the concrete barrier of the freeway.

 

JJ swore and slammed his fist against the steering wheel. “Shit. This night is just getting better and better!”

 

Viktor rolled his eyes. “Get the stretcher ready. We might have to transport.”

 

JJ stared, dumbfounded. “Are you serious? And get screwed by the boss because another one of his vehicles is off the roads for government inspection...? Hell no. We just clipped the guy. He’s fine. The ambulance is fine. He can file a damn report and get recompensed later and _we_ can get the hell out of here and back to the yard to drop this pile of shit off!”

 

Viktor sighed and turned away from JJ’s eyes to stare out the passenger window again. The water droplets had found purchase in the crevice where the window met the door and congealed. “Fine. Let’s go.”

 

JJ swung the ambulance around and headed down the road again. Viktor stared out the window, watching the path of the raindrops as they slid down the glass. The sight of the car they had hit caught his attention. The small vehicle was turned sideways, small pieces of the broken headlight littered the pavement. He couldn’t even see the figure of the driver through the tinted windows. Nobody had gotten out to inspect the damage or watch the ambulance drive away.

 

Viktor’s heart sank. Nobody was getting out of the car? Why weren’t they getting out?

 

He looked at his watch.

 

8:30 PM.

 

Aleksandr’s words echoed in his head. _When is it going to be_ now _, love?_

 

“Turn the ambulance around,” he ordered.

 

JJ started and shot him a glance, “What?”

 

“I said, turn the ambulance around. He’s not getting out. We have to help him. Damn the consequences.”

 

JJ searched his eyes for a long moment before groaning resignedly. He made a sharp U-turn, headlights alighting on the broken car ahead.

 

Viktor was sure. What he was doing was right.

 

His vision blurred. The Russian man swiped his eyes with his fingertips. They were wet with tears when he drew them away. He hadn’t even realized he’d started crying.

 

Blue eyes looked up to finally face the windshield. The car in front of them looked like the hollow husk of a beetle, the skeleton of a forgotten animal, as it sat lonely and still in the darkness. Viktor’s heart was thrumming painfully in his chest. It wanted something, needed something. And that something was in the car.

 

When his feet hit the pavement, Viktor’s heart lurched. It was almost agonizing, the fire that swept up his spine, urging him on toward his destination. Hell, he’d never felt this alive since...since Aleksandr.

 

There was a sense of purpose tugging at his heartstrings now, firing through his veins and turning them to steel. He felt like he did 2 years ago, as a doctor, focused on saving lives. One patient at a time. Almost-perfect track record….

 

Viktor tapped on the window. He could see the figure inside, limp against the seat. The Russian man’s heart clenched again. He tried the door first, pleasantly surprised when it gave way and opened.

 

He gasped at the sight of the man inside.

 

Thick, ebony hair fell wild and beautiful against a pale forehead and cheeks. Pink, full lips were slack against a soft, gentle face. There was a delicate sweep of the neck that disappeared into the collar of a blue jacket. Viktor reached out hesitantly, afraid to touch the god-like creature before him. The man was so beautiful. An angel, a siren, an immortal being with perfect, gorgeous features.

 

The Russian man laid a gentle hand on the driver’s shoulder. “My name is Viktor. Can you hear me? Are you alright, sir?”

 

The angel stirred and blinked slowly, revealing cinnamon-colored eyes framed by thick black lashes. Viktor choked, at a loss for words as the beautiful man turned those dark bourbon eyes on him.

 

“Mikhail? Is that you?” The angel whispered softly. 


	2. I Hear Your Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Viktor tries to learn more about the patient he saved, but the deeper he searches for Yuuri, the more memories are dredged up from his past...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No triggers in this chapter!
> 
> Also this chapter is dedicated to Piroco, the first and only comment on this story! Thank you so much for leaving feedback. You have no idea how much I needed it to get through this chapter!

**Viktor**

**November 25, 2016**

 

**8:35 PM**

Viktor drew the man carefully up out of the seat and into the stretcher. He relished the feeling of the man tucked up against his chest, warm and safe, before lowering him onto the board with a little reluctance. JJ was already there, working quickly to place the straps over his body. Viktor crooned to the sleeping patient and tucked a blanket over the still body laid out on the stretcher. The man had fallen unconscious, eyes rolling into the back of his head after speaking to Viktor in the car.

 

The Russian’s heart clenched when he watched him, face slack and still. The features of his face were so smooth, eyes almond-shaped and lined with thick, black lashes. His lips were soft, pink, and tempting. The man really was an angel.

 

Viktor couldn’t help but trail the back of his fingers lightly down the man’s cheekbone as he placed the towel rolls against the sides of his head to keep him immobile. So soft and warm. His skin was like silk. Viktor couldn’t help but imagine cupping those cheeks in his palms and seeing molten, burgundy eyes stare into his own blue ones. The man would nestle up close to him, arms sliding around Viktor’s neck, nose and lips brushing his ear so gently as he spoke-

 

JJ punched his arm and nodded toward the EMS vehicle, tearing Viktor out of his fantasies.

 

Inside, the silver-haired Russian slid in with his patient, glaring at JJ when he opened his mouth to complain. Viktor wanted to care for the man. He didn’t want his partner to touch him. JJ sighed and started up the ambulance without a word, tearing down the road with sirens ablaze.

 

The trip to the hospital was short and dream-like. Viktor’s mind flashed continuously between Aleksandr’s face and his patient’s. They were both so beautiful and so vulnerable in their hospital beds, eyes closed to the world around them.

 

Viktor couldn’t help but find excuses to touch the man laid out on the stretcher, squeezing various body parts to catalog damage and assess nerve control. He followed designated procedures, calling out blood pressure and heart rate readings, logging and committing them to memory, ensuring he was stabilized. And then he followed the desires of his soul, stroking an arm, a leg, a shoulder, sweeping his fingertips over the curve of the man’s neck, traced his lips and eyelids with tender strokes.

 

“Blood Pressure is 120 over 80, pulse 86, SPO2 100%,” he called as he twisted his fingers in the man’s soft hair. It felt like silk.

 

But he kept one hand on the man’s chest, feeling for his heartbeat the entire ride. It beat so gently in its cavity that Viktor could hardly stand to move away. If he did, that heart could stop beating and Viktor would lose him and be alone again.

 

The silver-haired Russian remembered the debilitating pain of the night he lost Aleksandr. Yakov had told him later that his husband had hemorrhaged in the hospital bed and was suffocated by his own blood.

 

_“There was little we could have done. Even if he hadn’t suffocated, his body would’ve been unable to handle the stress and damage caused by the rupture.”_

 

But had Viktor been there! Had he not fallen asleep in the storage room! Had he kept awake and let the bowl fill just enough to wet a couple rags, he would’ve been there for Aleksandr! Perhaps he could’ve even stopped it from happening…

 

Viktor sucked in a painful breath and locked his eyes on the sleeping angel. He wouldn’t let this man die under his care. This angel would be okay and would wake up healed. He would return to whoever “Mikhail” was, safe and sound.

 

The Russian’s heart clenched. In jealousy? In anger? Viktor couldn’t sort through the darker emotions he felt upon hearing that name pass from the angel’s lips. But there was nothing to be done. Perhaps “Mikhail” was just a friend and not a...lover.

 

There was a quiet noise from below him. The man’s eyes were open and staring up at him in awe. Viktor gasped and leaned over him, grasping the patient’s shoulders with both hands. Those beautiful burgundy eyes held something like confusion.

 

“My name is Viktor, darling. I need to ask you some questions...what’s- I mean...are you allergic to any medications?”

 

_What’s your relationship with Mikhail? Who are you? What is your name?_

 

The man groaned softly, eyes wheeling. Viktor squeezed his hand reassuringly. Those brown eyes focused on him and he whispered, “I-I’ve had heart surgery before.”

 

There was a curse from JJ still driving. “Can you get the number of his doctor, Viktor?”

 

Viktor bent down again, ear close to the man’s lips. He tugged out his phone just as the beautiful man began to rattle off a set of numbers with his quiet, honey voice. Viktor’s cell already recognized the combination and Viktor stared hard at the name of the contact already inputted in his phone from long ago.

 

**Doctor Ivanov**

 

“Viktor, we’re here! The Trauma team is waiting to take over.”

 

The silver-haired Russian was snapped out of his thoughts by JJ’s voice. He sat up and began checking the snaps on the stretcher, ensuring the Velcro was secured tightly. He didn’t want the angel to slip out of the secures and injure himself when the Trauma Team took him out of the vehicle. Viktor laced his fingers with the man’s, drawing his arm up and placing a gentle kiss on the knuckles. “I’ll see you soon, _solnyshko_.”

 

The door to the ambulance opened and JJ and the Trauma team were there, barking orders and moving in to bring the patient inside the hospital. Like a magnet, Viktor was drawn to the man lying on the board. He followed the team into the hospital, eyes never leaving the patient with soft, ivory skin and ebony hair until he disappeared into the emergency room.

 

“I need an X-ray on the cervical spine!”

 

“Wheel him carefully!”

 

“I need the machines ready now!”

 

A hand on his shoulder stopped him from following. “Viktor. You’re not allowed in there anymore. Go with JJ. Take the vehicle back to the yard after you turn in the report. You can’t be in there,” Yakov murmured.

 

Viktor turned and stared into the concerned eyes of his father figure. He didn’t even realize his lips were shaking until he spoke gutturally, “But I need to make sure he’s alright. Who is he, Yakov? Is he ok?”

 

Yakov’s eyebrows drew together. “I haven’t seen him yet, Viktor. I can’t make that call. What is wrong with you? Are you alright?”

 

Viktor sank his teeth into his lower lip, wringing his hands in his EMS coat. Finally, he drew in a breath and whispered, “Please call me when he’s alright, Yakov.”

 

The old doctor glared suspiciously, eyes searching. “Back to work,” he growled finally and turned away to follow the Trauma team and their patient into the Emergency Centre.

 

Viktor sighed and turned around, handing the clipboard to the nurse manning the desk. “The patient has a doctor, Doctor Ivanov. You need to call him over so he can see his patient.” The nurse nodded and flipped through the pages attached to the clipboard before handing it to an assistant. The women spoke quietly for a moment before the nursing assistant turned through the double doors and was lost in sight. They didn’t even look as Viktor followed JJ back outside to take the EMS vehicle to the yard.

 

***

 

Viktor leaned against the railing and watched the lights on the overhead ceiling shine on the hood of the EMS vehicle in the garage. Spots danced behind his eyelids in the shapes of the lights every time he blinked. He could hear snippets of the conversation outside the door between JJ and another nurse.

 

“JJ...this is the heart…..in the documents….his husband...sign down here.”

 

Viktor’s head snapped up and he stared hard through the glass doors. What were they saying?

 

“Thanks, Sharon….all my many thanks...definitely talk to him.”

 

“Tomorrow is the 180th.”

 

Viktor’s hands clenched over the bars. He remembered his husband’s words over the phone from a couple years ago. _“That’s 180 times you’ve told me ‘tomorrow.’ 180 ‘tomorrows.’”_

 

He was pulled from his thoughts by the sharp snapping of JJ’s boots climbing the stairs. The Canadian clapped Viktor hard on the back. “You good to go home? Do you need a ride?”

 

Viktor sighed. “I don’t want to go home. Not yet. Can you drop me off at the Emergency Centre?”

 

JJ’s lips thinned. His eyes searched Viktor’s for a moment before he groaned and gave a quiet assent. “Fine. Come on then.”

 

Viktor followed his partner out from the EMS garage and into the parking lot. It was freezing outside in the night. The steam from their breaths curled in the air like cigarette smoke. Viktor drew his coat tighter over his body, wishing to go home to a warm apartment, hearty meal, and beautiful, _alive_ husband ready to kiss him at the door. But that wouldn’t happen. Not anymore.

 

 For once, JJ didn’t even speak about his day or the beautiful, smart, talented wife he could go home to tonight. JJ wouldn’t have to sit alone in an empty house looking at all the frames on the walls gutted of pictures and the photo frames on the dressers and tables flipped over. Viktor’s apartment was just filled with empty frames. All memories of any happiness with Aleksandr gone.

 

He couldn’t bear to see the smiling face of his husband in their home any longer...a home that now solely belonged to Viktor. After Aleksandr’s death, he had gone on a purge, hiding all the photographs of his husband in a box that was left in the back corner of the closet.

 

“Here you go, buddy. Don’t stay here too late, alright? And get some rest! We have 6 AM shifts starting Wednesday.”

 

Viktor nodded and climbed out, strolling through the double doors of the ER. He couldn’t go inside the emergency centre any longer to work on incoming patients. So he turned the corner to the nurse’s desk in the waiting room instead.

 

Viktor could imagine Aleksandr coming in here, waiting patiently in line until he reached the desk to ask questions that would only be returned with hopeless answers.

 

“Can I help you, sir?”

 

Viktor stirred from his thoughts and met the nurse’s eyes. “Yes, there was a patient brought in here not an hour ago in a vehicle accident with an EMS. I was wondering if Doctor Ivanov got here.”

 

_Aleksandr would give the bored (and quite rude) nurse a wide, polite smile and murmur, “Yes, I was wondering if I could speak to Doctor Nikiforov? I have his laptop here. He needs it.”_

 

“I’m sorry, sir, but that information is confidential,” the nurse muttered, flipping through the papers at her desk, not even bothered to look up and speak to Viktor’s face.

 

_“I’ll send a message to Dr. Nikiforov.”_

 

“Well, can I visit the patient?”

 

_“Take a seat Mr-?”_

 

“Visiting hours are over. You’ll have to visit him tomorrow, Mr-?”

 

_“Nikiforov.”_

 

“Nikiforov.”

 

The nurse’s eyes softened, “Look, I can’t let you see him, but I’ll give you his name.” Viktor’s head snapped up. “But nothing more. I don’t want to lose my job. The patient’s name is Katsuki Yuuri.”

 

Viktor thanked her gratefully and turned around, strolling over to the plastic chairs pressed up against the glass windows in the waiting room. He folded his hands in his lap and turned to the seat next to him. Aleksandr always waited there for him. He always waited in these seats for a husband that would rather file reports than spend time with a man that gave him all his heart and love.

 

Tears filled Viktor’s eyes and he doubled over his knees, watching the tie swinging against his pants blur in and out of his tearing vision. He missed Aleksandr so much. And now, too late, Viktor knew the feeling of waiting. Waiting so hopelessly for a lover that would never come back. Waiting in an empty house for a husband that would never walk through the doors and hang his coat and slip into the bed, warm and safe.

 

“I miss you, _Sasha_ ,” Viktor whispered.

 

 

**Yuuri Katsuki**

**November 25, 2016**

 

**10:15 PM**

Doctor Ivanov shined a flashlight in his eyes, peering at him intently for something like abnormalities. Yuuri cringed and drew away slightly from the burning light.

 

“Your eyesight is good. You’ve seemed to recover quickly,” Doctor Ivanov murmured, offering him a gentle smile.

 

Yuuri sighed and sat up in the hospital bed, running his finger over the red hospital band hugging his wrist. Perhaps his eyes were fine, but his head was still killing him. Right now he just wanted to take some pills and fall asleep in his warm bed at home.

 

“His heart is still weak though. Why were you driving so fast, Yuuri?” Doctor Feltsman frowned and rested a hand on his shoulder.

 

Ivanov continued, “The examinations were enough. For now, there’s nothing too ominous to report.”

 

Yuuri pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “So when can I leave the hospital, doctor?”

 

Yakov grumbled under his breath. “Don’t rush things, Katsuki. Stay here a few days so we can monitor you, ensure you’re on track. Ivanov is a damn liar. Your tests still indicate heart abnormalities.”

 

Yuuri opened his eyes and stared at the doctors, squeezing his hands tightly together. “But I don’t want to waste time in the hospital, Doctor Ivanov. Please can I go home?”

 

Ivanov shot him an unimpressed look. “I’m wasting time, boy? I _need_ time. When you hear the ok, you can go. For now, you’ll listen to Feltsman. Stay here and rest.”

 

Yuuri sighed and nodded reluctantly. “Fine.” There was little he could do to change their minds. Besides, they’d done a lot for him already. Like perform his heart surgery for example...

 

Ivanov squeezed his shoulder gently and followed Yakov to the door. He turned around and, with a patient grin, said, “I’ll have the nurses give you some painkillers and a sleeping aid, alright?”

 

Yuuri smiled gratefully and nodded, sinking back against the pillows.

 

It wasn’t too much longer until the nurses came back and inserted something into his IV. He felt the pull of sleep beckoning him into a void promising peace and a painless tomorrow.

 

***

 

Doctor Ivanov’s face was the first thing he saw when he woke. The doctor was sitting patiently at his bedside, stroking Yuuri’s wrist with his thumb. “I know it’s early,” the old doctor whispered, “but we need more information. We’d like to perform an MRI scan so I can spot any physical abnormalities affecting your heart.”

 

Yuuri blinked sleepily and nodded. Whatever they needed to do to get him out of here quicker.

 

The nurses handed him a heavy, white hospital gown and led him out of the patient rooms toward the Radiology Department. He followed along slowly, still somewhat groggy from the drugs he’d been given before. At least the pain in his head was gone.

 

The MRI room was lit with low, golden light. It was quite peaceful, the hum of the MRI machine soft background noise. The nurses were quiet as they moved about the room, checking the machine and placing various straps over his chest when he laid out on the board.

 

One of the nurses spoke to him quietly through her mask, “This MRI scanning machine uses magnetic and radio waves to create a detailed image of your heart. Not to worry, Mr. Katsuki, the procedure is painless. When we give you the word, you’ll be moved into the machine. It’s alright if you fall asleep.” She smiled. “The scan is quite long. You’ll be in there for almost an hour.”

 

Yuuri groaned softly.

 

“Are you at all claustrophobic, Mr. Katsuki?”

 

Yuuri blushed. “I’m not, at least...I don’t think so?”

 

The nurse laughed and pressed his hand to a small button set into the board he was laying on. “This is the panic button. If it gets too much for you, press it and we’ll take you out.”

 

Yuuri nodded gratefully.

 

In his other hand, the nurse placed a pair of ear plugs. “The machine is quite loud.”

 

Yuuri squeezed the rubber devices and slipped them into his ears as the nurse began the countdown. The board moved smoothly into the center of the machine. It was like a long, plastic tube. The sides of the walls pressed close on his shoulders and the ceiling of the machine closed in only inches away from his face. He saw what the nurse meant about claustrophobia. Yuuri couldn’t move even if he wanted to. The straps soldered him to the board and the machine ensured he wouldn’t be able to move around much.

 

Yuuri closed his eyes and breathed in deep. The plugs in his ears drowned out the loud noise of the MRI machine. He could feel its vibrations beneath his body as a quiet hum that drolled in the back of his head. If he imagined he wasn’t being squeezed on all sides by a machine, it _could’ve_ been like his bed back home.

 

But he couldn’t ignore the race of his pulse and the way it drummed loud in his ears, in his head, behind his eyes. Yuuri knew the doctors wouldn’t like what they were bound to find. And this time there would be no saving him…

 

**Viktor Nikiforov**

**November 26, 2016**

 

**4:23 AM**

Viktor lowered the passenger seat of Yakov’s car all the way down until he was practically lying down in the vehicle. He withdrew his phone from inside his pocket and began going through his social media feed. But he wasn’t halfway through his apps when he closed them with a bored sigh. His heart wasn’t in it.

 

The nurse in the waiting room had finally kicked him out after midnight, threatening charges of trespassing. But Viktor knew she wouldn’t have called the authorities at all. Everyone in the hospital knew the story of Doctor Nikiforov, Ex Head Physician who quit his job to become an EMS assistant after the unfortunate death of his husband- the death he caused because of his own ignorance.

 

Now nurses and doctors alike stared as Viktor wandered through the hallways of the hospital, holding hushed conversations behind clipboards and hands, spreading the gossip of the gaunt-looking man that had once been so full of life and passion. Viktor could pretty much go anywhere without any problem. Except the Emergency Room Centre. Yakov explicitly forbade it. But he didn’t exactly prohibit Viktor from sneaking into his office.

 

Which is what Viktor had done after being kicked out of the waiting room. He’d snuck into Yakov’s office hoping to corner him and force information out about the beautiful patient from earlier. But the old doctor had never come. Viktor grew quite bored in the office. And Yakov’s sofa was so uncomfortable. So he’d slipped Yakov’s car keys from off the desk into his pocket, written a little thank-you note for the doctor to find, and snuck into Yakov’s car in the parking lot to sleep.

 

He didn’t want to go back to his apartment. Not yet.

 

With a sigh, Viktor unlocked his phone and opened up a tab on the web browser. He searched for the name the nurse had given him.

 

**Catski Yuri**

 

No results.

 

**Catskey Yuri**

 

No results. Viktor groaned. He couldn’t spell to save his life, let alone a name in another language. The patient’s name certainly wasn’t a Russian one.

 

He scrolled through the search pages desperately until he reached the bottom of the page.

 

**Did you mean: Katsuki Yuuri?**

 

Viktor rolled his eyes. Of course.

 

The first result on the page immediately drew his attention.

 

**Russia’s Fashion Superstar Mikhail Gorbovich On His Break-Up: Yuuri No More!**

 

Viktor let out a quiet growl. So this was the bastard Yuuri had called out to in the car. An old lover. Apparently out of the picture too. Viktor could work with that.

 

The next result made his body go numb. Viktor read through the article with dread.

 

** Sudden Collapse Of 21-Year-Old Yuuri Leads to Heart Transplantation **

 

**December 26, 2014| 10:12 AM**

**Fyodor Kuznetsov**

 

At around 9 PM on December 25, Yuuri Gorbovich was rushed to Moscow’s General Hospital after collapsing in his home. His husband, fashion icon Mikhail Gorbovich, found him lying still and unconscious on the floor in their kitchen and immediately called for an ambulance.

 

Yuuri was seen by Emergency Room personnel and then transferred over to Cardiology Specialist, Albert Ivanov, who determined his collapse to be due to a form of dilated cardiomyopathy, a condition that prevents the heart from pumping blood properly.

 

Yuuri’s condition was quickly destroying his heart’s ability to function, so Ivanov immediately sent him into emergency heart transplantation surgery in order to save his life. Yuuri’s heart donor was a patient in the hospital who had recently died. The donor’s heart was confirmed to be the closest in shape to Yuuri’s and their blood types matched, so the procedure was undergone almost as soon as Yuuri arrived.

 

Albert Ivanov’s quick thinking and the heart surgery, performed by Russia’s top heart surgeons, kept Yuuri alive through the night. As of right now, Yuuri’s body is reported to have accepted the donor heart and the man is healing nicely in Moscow’s General Hospital. He’ll be there for close to 2 weeks undergoing multiple tests and therapy to ensure his new heart is in working order!

 

 

 

Viktor sighed and closed out of the article. He sat for a moment, pondering over the information. Then he pulled up the hospital’s messaging page on its website. He logged in under ‘ **Doctor** ’ and began typing out his old login information to the instant messaging portal. He wondered for a moment if he’d even be able to get in seeing as he wasn’t a physician in the hospital anymore, but the website accepted the password and opened up to the ‘ **Conversations** ’ section.

 

Viktor breathed a sigh of relief and typed in Doctor Ivanov’s information into the conversation box. Hopefully the doctor would get back to him quickly. Viktor _needed_ to know the state of Katsuki Yuuri now. Hopefully the accident didn’t contribute to any setbacks in Yuuri’s healing. Viktor didn’t know what he would do if he caused _another_ person he loved to die.

 

_Loved_. Viktor winced. He didn’t even know Yuuri, and Yuuri didn’t know who _he_ was either. There couldn’t be talk yet of “love.”

 

Viktor sent the message and waited, tapping impatiently on the leather seat in Yakov’s car.

 

**Viktor: I need information on a patient of yours from 2 years ago**

 

The reply came in minutes.

 

**Ivanov: I know who you’re talking about… But I can’t give out confidential information**

 

**Viktor: I know the regulations, but I need to know…**

 

**Viktor: Please, Ivanov**

 

**Ivanov: I can only confirm that the heart transplant was from a donor that died at the hospital on the same day Yuuri was brought in…**

 

*******

 

There was a sharp rap on the window. Viktor jerked up from the car’s seat and blearily looked over to see Yakov banging his fist on the driver’s side of the car. The silver-haired Russian scrambled over the console to unlock the driver’s door. Yakov climbed in with a grumble.

 

“Vitya,” Yakov snapped, “How many times have I told you not to steal the keys to my car?”

 

“But Yakov,” Viktor whined. “I left you a note. Did you not get it? It said: Thanks for letting me borrow your keys-”

 

“I _know_ what it said. That doesn’t change anything! This is the thousandth time you’ve slept in my car and the last time I’m warning you not to do it again.”

 

Viktor was silent a moment as he turned away from Yakov to stare at the light filtering into the car’s windows.  It was bright and sunny out, puffy clouds blanketing the sky. Rare weather for Moscow in November. Hmm. Apparently he’d slept in Yakov’s car through the rest of the night...or early morning. His watch read 9:16 AM.

 

Viktor turned to the old doctor and murmured, “I’m sorry. I just don’t like going back there.”

 

Yakov’s eyes softened and he muttered half-heartedly, “This is your last warning, boy. I’m taking you home so you can rest in a real bed. Don’t complain, either. You need to shower and change! You smell like a damn sewer, Vitya.”

 

Viktor frowned and sunk lower in the seat. “Fine, Yakov.”

 

***

 

Viktor’s hands shook as he shoved the key into the door and twisted it all around. He hadn’t been here in a while, so he couldn’t remember which way actually unlocked it. But there was finally a click and the door busted open, forcing Viktor to his knees.

 

It was so cold and dark in the apartment.

 

Viktor launched himself from the floor and tore through the hallway into the master bedroom. He didn’t look at the bed or the dresser still holding Aleksandr’s reading glasses and magazines he liked to flip through before bed. He didn’t want the memories of his life with Aleksandr to haunt him. So he slammed the door to the closet and pulled clothes off their hangers without looking to see if they matched.

 

The Russian walked into the bathroom to shower. His toothbrush and the hair products he rarely used now flooded his side of the counter. The bottles were laying haphazardly all around the sink, some tipped over and others stacked on each other, caps open and dried product leaking out over the sides of the bottles.

 

The mess would’ve driven Aleksandr crazy. Viktor’s husband had been determined in keeping things in the apartment in their proper spaces. The clothes in their closet had once been color coded and placed neatly on hangars. Shoes had been kept in the pockets of an over-the-door rack.

 

The food cans in the pantry in the kitchen used to be stacked with the labels facing out, sorted perfectly by food types. Aleksandr didn’t like the white spaces in the pantry to be seen, so they’d always had years’ worth of canned food in the cupboards at all times to cover up the gaps.

 

Now the sink was cluttered, the pantry practically bare, and the closet ransacked, clothes scattered all over the floor.

 

The other sink in the bathroom, _Aleksandr’s sink_ , was bare. Viktor had cleared away all of his husband’s items from the counter and stuffed them under the bathroom sinks.

 

While he couldn’t look at Aleksandr’s things anymore, he didn’t want to throw them away.

 

Showered and changed into new clothes, he was out the door in minutes. Perhaps he should walk to the hospital or take the bus...or maybe he should buy flowers for Yuuri and sit by the hospital bed and hold his hand. Or perhaps he should wait on the flowers. He didn’t want to scare Yuuri away…

 

Viktor sped down the sidewalk toward the bus station. He just wanted to get to the hospital quick and take advantage of the visiting hours while they lasted. Aboard the red vehicle, he fished out coins for the fare and grabbed a hold of the overhanging bar. He was feeling too antsy to sit down and wait for the hospital stop.

 

The weather and a chance to see Yuuri was probably so infectious on his mood, because he’d never smiled so much or waved such an earnest goodbye to the bus driver since Aleksandr’s death. Even his walk into the ER Centre held something like excitement. The trip up the elevator to the waiting rooms was spent tapping impatiently on his leg, staring at the numbers of the floors as they lit up slowly.

 

The elevator stopped a couple floors from the waiting room and Viktor barely restrained the groan that threatened to escape his lips. A man and two nurses walked in, chatting amiably with each other. The man in the elevator was holding a vase full of red and white flowers.

 

Viktor tried not to listen to their conversation as they stepped in, but his head shot their way when the man told the nurses, “Yeah the flowers are for Yuuri. I had to ask the florist in the shop what they symbolized.” He beamed; smile all teeth, eyes scrunched. “Apparently the white ones, anemone flowers signify healing, and the red carnations mean strength.”

 

“I’m sure he’ll love them, Phichit,” one of the nurses smiled.

 

“He would’ve loved to see the hamsters even more, but the hospital doesn’t allow pets,” Phichit grumbled under his breath to the laughter of the nurses in the elevator.

 

Viktor frowned. Another man knew about his Yuuri? And apparently Yuuri knew him?

 

The elevator shuddered to a stop on the waiting room floor and Viktor followed Phichit out at a distance as the man walked up to the waiting room desk to get a pass and turned down another hallway where presumably Yuuri was staying. The silver-haired Russian followed, stopping at the window to peek into Yuuri’s room.

 

Phichit was standing at Yuuri’s bedside, embracing the beautiful angel who was giving him a wide smile in return. Viktor slumped against the frame of the window and smiled too. Yuuri was gorgeous and his infectious, charming smile warmed his heart. His heart that had gone cold during the time after Aleksandr’s death when he was alone.

 

Oh how he wanted those burgundy eyes soft and warm as they met his eyes. He wanted to hear the buttery purr of his voice as he whispered to him. He wanted those arms wrapped around his neck in a hug, lips breathing tinkling laughter in his ear as he tugged Viktor down into his embrace.

 

“Doctor Nikiforov? Doctor Nikiforov, is that you?” Viktor turned around. There was a doctor calling his name down the hallway, stepping closer to where Viktor was standing at the window.

 

Viktor’s mind flashed. The doctor’s voice sounded like Aleksandr’s.

 

_“Doctor Nikiforov? Doctor Nikiforooov,” Aleksandr whined from where he was laying on Viktor’s sofa in his office. His husband was splayed out like a child, arms flapping against the wall, shoes pressing against the end of the couch. Aleksandr’s pink lips were pressed together in an adorable pout._

 

_Viktor peered over his laptop at his husband, raising an eyebrow at his lover’s antics._

 

_Aleksandr continued, pitifully, “Doctor Nikiforov, I feel unwell.” As if to support his statement, he let out a loud groan and tucked his knees up against his chest, arm flying over his head as if the lights on the ceiling were hurting his eyes._

 

_Viktor rolled his eyes and chuckled. “Unwell? Hmm. Describe your symptoms, Mr. Nikiforov.”_

 

_There was silence from across the room. Then Aleksandr turned over, arm dropping from across face to cup his chin. He smiled delicately over at Viktor and laughed. Then he rolled over again and gave a loud moan. “Fever, headache...tachycardia.”_

 

_Viktor laughed and stood from his desk. “Tachycardia? Really?”_

 

_Aleksandr fluttered his eyes and gave him a sweet, “Yes, doctor.”_

 

_Viktor sank to his knees next to the couch and stroked Aleksandr’s forehead. “Hmm. Not too warm.”_

 

_Aleksandr batted his hand away, grinning. “Check my heart rate,_ Doctor _Nikiforov.”_

 

_The silver-haired Russian removed his stethoscope and rested it on his husband’s chest, listening to the beating of his lover’s heart. Aleksandr covered his hand, unlacing his fingers from the bell of the stethoscope. He raised Viktor’s fingers to his lips and pressed soft kisses on the digits. “So what’s the prognosis, Doctor?”_

 

_Viktor brushed the brown fringe of hair away from his lover’s eyes and pressed his lips softly to Aleksandr’s. “I didn’t hear anything.”_

 

_Aleksandr punched his shoulder and Viktor laughed. “Where did you even get your degree? You’re the worst doctor ever!”_

 

_Viktor cupped his husband’s cheeks and kissed his face, his cheeks, his eyelids, his nose, everywhere over his skin. Aleksandr groaned and threaded his fingers in Viktor’s silver hair, letting out a quiet sigh as Viktor’s kisses trailed down his neck. “Is this my treatment for having such an abnormally fast heart rate? You’re just making it worse, honestly.”_

 

_Viktor laughed against his neck._

 

 

 

“Doctor Nikiforov?”

 

Viktor sighed as his mind was pulled away from the memory. He turned to the doctor who was now only feet away. “Yes? Did you need something?”

 

“Doctor Feltsman would like to speak with you.”

 

Viktor took a quick breath and smiled. It felt too bright and too fake. “Alright, lead the way.”

 

He turned around once more to catch a final glimpse into the patient room. Phichit had pulled a chair up to Yuuri’s bedside and was holding the angel’s hands in his own. Both were laughing and grinning as they spoke. Viktor smiled sadly before turning away and following the doctor out of the waiting room and down the halls toward Yakov’s office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, yeah I lied. This story is gonna be longer than 3 chapters. BUT, it will be finished by January or sometime during the first week of January!
> 
> Thanks everybody who subscribed, bookmarked, and kudo-d this story!
> 
> Next chapter we get to see more stalker-ish Viktor and more of Yuuri's heartbreaking past:(


	3. The Sound of Shattered Glass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Viktor delves deep into Yuuri's painful past...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter! Two days in a row! I'm really feeling this story, guys!
> 
> Warning: this be a heavy chapter. Really heavy

**Viktor Nikiforov**

**November 30, 2016**

 

**1:12 PM**

“So I heard Yakov pulled you aside last week to talk,” JJ said as he took the tray from the cafeteria worker and moved down the line to pick an apple from the fruit basket. “What happened?”

 

Viktor groaned and followed him, balancing his own tray on his arm. He grabbed a small carton of orange juice from the fridge and sat down across from JJ at a small table. “He told me to stay away from Katsuki Yuuri,” Viktor frowned into his lunch, unwrapping the sandwich on his tray from its wax covering.

 

“Katsuki Yuuri?”

 

“The patient we hit in the ambulance,” Viktor explained through a mouthful of wheat bread, turkey, and cheese.

 

JJ laughed and took a bite of his own sandwich. “The nurses have been talking about you, you know. They say Yakov bound you from going into the waiting room from now on, because you keep sneaking looks at _Katsuki Yuuri_ through a _window_.”

 

Viktor groaned. “It’s not like _that_.”

 

JJ raised an eyebrow. “Somehow I don’t believe you.”

 

Viktor laughed and wiped his hands on his napkin. “I just want to make sure he returns home safe.”

 

There was a moment of silence as both EMT workers finished their lunch. Viktor crumpled his wax paper and napkin into a ball, dropping it onto the middle of the tray. He was about to stand up and throw the tray away when JJ muttered, “Phichit says he’s leaving this evening.”

 

Viktor paused at the table. “Yuuri is leaving?”

 

“Yeah. The doctors cleared him to go back home.”

 

“Well, that’s good,” Viktor murmured thoughtfully. Inside he was panicking at the thought of the beautiful angel leaving the hospital to go back home. Viktor still didn’t know anything about him. He didn’t know what Yuuri’s favorite color was, if he liked dogs, his favorite restaurant to eat out at, or what he did for a living. He didn’t know whether Mikhail was still in the picture, if Phichit was his new boyfriend, or where he was born and grew up. Viktor was lost in his sea of worries, wondering if he could just plead sick today and go say goodbye to Yuuri one final time.

 

JJ clapped him on the back. “Hey, the boss is taking out a couple recruits for a couple circuits around the city today, which means we’re off for the afternoon.”

Viktor sighed in relief. Never had he loved his boss more than right now. He could go see Yuuri today and tell him that Viktor was the one to save him from the terrible car accident. He imagined Yuuri expressing his greatest thanks, blushing a bit as he imagined Viktor as his savior. And Viktor would play off his role in the rescue as _no big deal_ , _“But I wouldn’t say no to going out with me for coffee as a thank you.”_

 

Yuuri would give him a funny, albeit gentle, smile and take his hand. And they would sit in the little cafe by Viktor’s apartment and tell each other the stories of their lives. Viktor sighed dreamily.

 

“Hey, just don’t do anything that’s gonna get you on Yakov’s bad side even more,” JJ said, shooting him a suspicious look.

 

Right. Yakov. _Damn._

 

Viktor nodded. “I know, I know. I won’t bother Katsuki anymore. Besides, I’m behind on logging files.”

 

***

 

**2:46 PM**

Viktor groaned and rested his forehead in his hands. He’d been logging in the EMT files for...an hour. He could probably take a break seeing as he’d gotten through 4 files during the hour, _not_ after many water and bathroom breaks. Maybe he should just close the system down and head up to general hospital building.

 

And since he’d been a physician under Yakov for a long time, he knew there were other ways to get into the patient resting rooms without going through the waiting rooms.

 

Yakov didn’t have to know.

 

A loud _bang_ on the door startled him. JJ was rushing in madly, sending the door crashing into the wall where there was already a good chunk of plaster missing. JJ liked to make an entrance.

 

“So, Viktor,” his partner strolled in casually, as if he hadn’t just damaged the wall in Viktor’s office even more than it already was. “I know Yakov isn’t condoning your weird Yuuri-obsession, but I just had a lovely conversation with the Head Nurse in the Waiting Room and she told me-”

 

Viktor sighed impatiently.

 

“-oh shut up, Viktor, it gets better. She told me that Katsuki left his keys in his room, so _I_ told _her_ that _I_ would bring them to Yakov _for_ her-”

 

Another sigh.

 

“-Viktor, I’m getting there! So I told her that I’d get the keys to Yakov, so he could take them to Yuuri, but I’m just going to give them to you.” JJ drew a small plastic bag from inside his pocket and tossed it onto Viktor’s desk. The keys hit the wood with a loud _thunk_. Viktor stared dumbfounded at the bag for a moment before looking up as JJ walked out of the room.

 

“Have fun with your boy toy, Viktor!” JJ called and slammed the door shut.

 

A slow smile spread over the Russian’s face. JJ, while certainly annoying, had his charms. And in this moment, he’d given Viktor the greatest blessing. An opportunity to see Yuuri again.

 

Viktor turned the bag over in his hands. Written on the plastic in marker was an address in Moscow, probably to Yuuri’s house. JJ had also attached a post-it note to the bag with an address to a ballet studio near Yuuri’s apartment.

 

**Try the ballet studio first. I heard that Yuuri was thinking about going back to work today.**

 

Back to work? After just being released from the hospital? Viktor frowned. That wouldn’t do.

 

He stood up, slipping the bag into his pocket, and walked out of the EMT building. He recognized the name of the ballet studio. It was a few miles away from the hospital.

 

Viktor hailed a taxi and sat pleasantly on leather seats drowning in the scent of cigar smoke and perfume. He kept one arm inside his pocket to finger the shape of the keys stuffed safely there. The other drummed on his knee to the beat of the song on the radio.

 

The driver was a gruff old man whose only words had been a “where to?” and “500 rubles.”

 

Viktor paid the taxi driver and stepped out of the vehicle.

 

The front facade of the ballet studio boasted giant glass windows latticed with steel beams, a testament to the district’s industrial chic look. He could see dancers milling inside, some with sports duffel bags, water bottles, and towels thrown over their shoulders.

 

Inside was even grander. The exposed walls were covered in white, distressed brick where there were no mirrors surrounding the private studios. The ceiling above, three stories up, was covered in crisscrossing beams painted a rich crème color.

 

There were dancers all around him in the private studios, stretching at the bar, practicing their pas de deuxs, leaping and flying across the wooden floors, always accompanied by their reflections in the mirrors.

 

He wondered which room Yuuri was practicing in and how he would look gracefully leaping across the floor. He wondered what kind of face Yuuri would make when he concentrated on his dances, the way his hair would fall as Yuuri twisted and turned across the floor, the shape of his lips and jaw in concentration.

 

Beautiful.

 

Viktor walked slowly up to the front desk, taking his time to appreciate the look of the ground floor of the ballet building. The woman sitting at the desk wore an off-the-shoulder black crop top and leggings over beige ballet slippers. Her bright red hair brushed the tips of her shoulders and clashed marvelously with her black outfit. Her name tag read ‘Mila’.

 

“I’m looking for Katsuki Yuuri,” Viktor murmured to her, fingering the bag of keys in his pocket with equal nervousness and excitement.

 

Mila looked him up and down, a grin stretching gradually across her face. “Sure,” She smiled sweetly. “He’s teaching the children’s classes right now. Second floor, studio 5.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

“No problem,” Mila winked. “I’m sure he’ll be _very_ happy to see you.”

 

Viktor wasn’t so sure. Yuuri had never met him, not really. He had been slightly delirious in the EMT vehicle when Viktor had saved him. There was no way he’d remember Viktor’s name.

 

But he took the stairs anyway and imagined how his conversation with Yuuri would play out. This time, he could be both the hero that had saved him from the car wreck _and_ the one who delivered Yuuri’s keys to him safe and sound. He could proudly tell Yuuri that he owed him _twice_ now, so coffee was really the only way to pay Viktor back.

 

Yuuri would raise his eyebrows skeptically, plump lips turned up in amusement. He’d pull Viktor down to his level by the collar of his shirt and whisper an assent so soft in his ear that Viktor’s knees would give out and he’d find himself kneeling at Yuuri’s feet.

 

Viktor shuddered as he reached the top of the stairs. Yuuri was too good even for his fantasies to handle.

 

He peered down the row of studios until his eyes lit on the larger room at the end of the hallway. The studio was covered all in glass and mirrors. There had to be at least twenty children in there as well, all with matching leotards and tights as they stretched simultaneously in a slew of ballet positions.

 

And then _Yuuri_ was there moving among the children to correct their stances and offer praise. The angel was so beautiful as he knelt next to the children to hug their little bodies and laugh with them and show them how to correctly transition between moves.

 

Viktor sighed and sat down on the top stair, hugging his knees. Yuuri held so much vibrancy and life. His cheeks were bright red, flushed from the exercise and his laughter. Golden-brown eyes were full of light as he gave the children warm smiles that showed pearly teeth. His hair fell adorably in his eyes, silky and ebony against his skin.

 

Sweat shimmered on his forehead, lit by the bright lights of the studio and the buttery, natural light from outside. Yuuri’s leotard hugged his body nicely, showing off just enough muscle and a slightly pudgy belly Viktor wanted to cradle as they laid together in bed. He imagined Yuuri snuggled up to him, head tucked under his chin. Viktor would bury his nose in the angel’s silken hair as their bodies molded together. Yuuri’s curves were so soft looking.

 

And his thighs! Viktor licked his lips and wondered if Yuuri wouldn’t mind showing him a ballet solo before they went on their coffee date. He would fly across the floor, vaulting around, _propelled_ by those amazing thighs...

 

Viktor sighed and leaned his cheek against his palm. Yuuri was too gorgeous for anymore words. He was such an angel smiling prettily at the children. The Russian imagined that if he was sitting in the studio, he could hear Yuuri’s buttery laugh as he talked and joked with the little children.

 

Viktor’s heart ached for a moment. He wanted to see Yuuri smile at children _all_ the time. And maybe not just any children, but Viktor’s children. If, say, he had one.

 

But the angel in front of him seemed so pure and beautiful. He deserved anything he wanted and everything life had to offer.

 

Life.

 

Viktor’s thoughts turned wistfully to Aleksandr. His old husband had smiled like Yuuri at children sometimes. His eyes would sparkle and his mouth would turn up slightly at the corners. Such an expression of softness would cross his face that Viktor’s heart would clench at the sheer pure _desire_ in it.

 

Hell. Both Aleksandr and Yuuri had been so full of life. Are so full of life.

 

If Viktor closed his eyes, he could practically hear Yuuri’s heart calling out to him in the ballet studio, thrumming so strongly in the room. Like a great big drum.

 

Viktor gave a quiet noise of pain as his mind flashed to the article he had read in Yakov’s car. The heart Yuuri had been born with hadn’t been enough to sustain the brightness that Yuuri himself exuded. His first heart hadn’t been strong enough. So he’d been given another.

 

Another heart. _Another._

 

Viktor squeezed his hands together, remembering Doctor Ivanov’s message. “ _I can only confirm that the heart transplant was from a donor that died at the hospital on the same day Yuuri was brought in…”_

 

Viktor let out a soft sob and buried his face in his knees. Tears streamed down his cheeks and dripped onto the wooden floors. His body shook, threatening to tumble him back down the stairs.

 

Yuuri didn’t have just anyone’s heart after his surgery.

 

He held Aleksandr’s.

 

***

 

**3:59 PM**

Viktor rang the doorbell to the apartment three times even though he knew no one would answer. He peeked in through the frosted glass windows. Everything inside was dark. Perhaps the lights were out.

 

Viktor tugged the bag of keys out of his pocket and stuck the silver house key in the door. He turned it in the lock and it clicked on the first try. The door swung open smoothly.

 

Viktor peeked inside.

 

Yuuri’s apartment was gorgeous. The interior was white. White walls, white winding staircase into a loft above, white marbled floor. He stepped down the hallway and peered into the living room. A taupe corner couch stretched the length of the space, decorated with thick, green pillows. A glass table held a bowl of oranges in the center of the room.

 

There were lamps everywhere, positioned next to the couch cushions, near the stairs to the hallway, and on glass and wooden tables lingering near the entrance to the dining room, study room, and kitchen.

 

The walls were covered in abstract paintings, some huge and stretching taller than Viktor himself. Pottery and sculptures were placed artistically about the downstairs space, adding flair to the contemporary style of the apartment.

 

And everywhere there were flowers, plants, and bowls of oranges. Oranges on the table in the living room, in the dining room, the kitchen counters, the end tables. The fresh greens of the plants and the colors of the fruit bowls contrasted so brightly with the white apartment.

 

Viktor felt safe here. The space seemed nurturing and lively in a room that suggested nothing but negative space with its white walls.

 

What a wonderfully beautiful place to live!

 

The staircase leading to the loft above was made of marble and glass. Viktor took the stairs carefully, peering up to the ceiling until it wasn’t covered by stairs anymore. He gave a quiet gasp. The ceiling wasn’t really a ceiling at all, but a large plane of glass looking to the sky above.

 

It was bright blue reflected in the glass now. There were no clouds in the sky today. Strange weather in Moscow.

 

The loft opened up to a game or movie-viewing room. The carpet in the room was white and fluffy. A large gray couch took up most of the space, covered in green, brown and blue pillows. The coffee table near it held another abstract statue and bowl of oranges.

 

Around the room, the walls were made of glass, looking out into the streets of Moscow beyond. Light filtered into the windows, making bright patches of sunlight on the white carpeted floor. At the end of the hall to his right was a door.

 

Master bedroom.

 

Viktor gulped.

 

Perhaps this was a moment of truth. While there were no pictures of Yuuri and another man in the house, in fact there weren’t any pictures of even _Yuuri_ in the apartment at all, the master bedroom might hold personal memories committed to photograph.

 

Viktor pushed the handle to the door down and stepped inside.

 

The first thing he noticed wasn’t the four poster bed, or the gray lace curtains in the windows leading to the balcony outside, or even the bowl of oranges on the side table next to the bed.

 

It was to a leather-bound journal sitting on the mahogany desk next to the door Viktor had just opened.

 

He remembered when Yakov had pulled him aside that fateful night two years ago and given him the journal that had been in Aleksandr’s car. Viktor had read every entry in that journal every night for a month, haunted by his husband’s last words ever written.

 

** December 22 **

**180th tomorrow**

 

Aleksandr had loved writing in his journal. He’d read in one of the magazines he liked to peruse before bed that journal writing and blogging helped tap into one’s emotional intelligence. It had been a phase Aleksandr had gone through, wanting to study emotions and the psychology of feelings.

 

He’d stolen some of Viktor’s textbooks on cognitive psychology and cognitive empathy, intent on learning something about how to be an empath and be able to recognize what others are feeling.

 

But Viktor understood too late that it had been an attempt on Aleksandr’s part to understand Viktor better. Perhaps if Aleksandr studied emotion and learned to connect other people’s emotions with ease, he could understand Viktor and...save their marriage.

 

Journal writing it seemed had been the only thing to stay after Aleksandr had gotten bored with the textbooks.

 

He never stopped writing though.

 

Perhaps Aleksandr thought deep down he could still save their marriage and connection by tapping into his “emotional intelligence.” Or maybe it was just a way to vent his frustration on how much of an idiotic bastard Viktor was.

 

Viktor stroked the cracked leather of Yuuri’s journal and carried it with him to the chair near the balcony door. The Russian man unhooked the clasp to the journal and opened it to the first entry.

 

 

**Entry #1**

**September 26, 2014**

 

Dear Mikhail,

 

When you read this journal, or rather, if you read it, know that I feel like I’m not even in this world. I feel so hopeless. Like a little boat fighting the currents, or the fuzz of a dandelion swept away into the wind, forced onto a journey I’ve never wanted. I’m tumbling through life now, scratched and bruised. And when I reach the end, can I say I’ve even won anything? Through all that struggle, will I be able to even say that the end was worth it?

 

I can’t fight it. I can’t do anything.

 

I’m just hurting. Hurting in all the ways one _can_ be hurt.

 

Physically. Emotionally. Mentally.

 

Maybe I’m not in this world.

 

-Y.G.

 

**Entry #2**

**November 26, 2014**

 

After the heart transplant surgery:

 

Maybe the owner of this heart was happy. He could wait patiently for his husband or wife to come home…

 

But I can’t. I’m not used to being so lonely.

 

I stare out into the streets of a foreign city in a country I don’t know. The cars are loud, the people are loud, the city is loud. Everything screams in my ears with such force, I feel like my eardrums will bleed out. My ears will hemorrhage with all the noise here and die and then I won’t be able to hear anything anymore.

 

Soon after that, I’ll go crazy instead at the _silence_.

 

I feel so alone in all this. And I’m so weak from the surgery.

 

Russia wants hardened people. _You_ want a hardened husband.

 

And I can’t be it.

 

-Y.G.

 

**Entry #3**

**December 19, 2014**

 

Caring for a sick person is a very hard job.

Thank you for being there the duration of these very last days…

 

-Y.G.

 

**Entry #4**

**January 16, 2015**

 

When I checked out of the hospital today, they almost wouldn’t let my leave without my husband there to discharge me from their care. The nurses and doctors were arguing in the room while I sat on the stripped bed and tried to button up my shirt.

 

My fingers felt so clumsy and weak. Pushing those little plastic buttons through the holes in my shirt was like bench pressing three hundred pounds. It was impossible.

 

And no one seemed to notice my struggle.

 

Nor did I really want them to notice.

 

Do you know why?

 

In my head, I call it the ‘button down shirt crisis’. You know that your life is over when you can’t do the basic things for yourself anymore. It’s when precision meets chaos and misses. It’s when peace counters destruction and falters. It’s when life faces death and rolls over belly-up.

 

I couldn’t button my shirt on my own. I couldn’t leave the hospital on my own. I couldn’t function through life without someone else’s heart to carry me down life’s path. And now that heart is starting to give up on me. My heart doesn’t want me anymore.

 

And sometimes I think yours doesn’t want me either.

 

-Y.

 

**Entry #5**

**February 14, 2015**

 

When one searches ‘Valentine’s Day’ on the internet, other names for this “gloriously romantic day” are found.

 

I want to share my research with you:

 

First Valentine’s Day celebrates the name of the saint who healed his enemy’s daughter whilst imprisoned in jail. He wrote her a valentine before he was executed.

 

Then it became a day to engage in chivalrous, noble love with another. This love was between knights and erotically beautiful royals. Passionate love. Noble love. Exciting love. Courtly love.

 

And then it became a symbolic day, a day when lovers give their hearts to each other in the most personal, heartfelt ways.

 

Valentine’s Day must mean a day to engage in many forms of love. But I’ve also found that February 14, 2015, “Valentine’s Day” is also named:

 

Raised Expectations Day

Feel Inadequate About Your Love Day

Get Into A Fight About That Thing He Wants You To Do Day

Drink Alone Day

Sob Into Leftovers Day

These Flowers Are Wilted Day

 

I’ve decided to name it: Dying Inside Both Physically And Emotionally Day.

 

Of course it had to be Valentine’s Day when I found out. I hope your happy. This is what you’ve always wanted anyway.

 

-Y.K.

  


 

Viktor turned the page. The fifth entry had been clipped to a couple newspaper articles.

 

** Mikhail Gorbovich, Hottest Bachelor Alive, Wins Fashion Award In St. Petersburg **

 

** Mikhail Gorbovich Caught In Hotel Room With Italian Model, Sara Crispino. Is Yuuri No More? **

  


 

**Entry #6**

**April 12, 2015**

 

I think I feel ok enough to talk about what happened. You think you’re invincible, incapable of making mistakes. You thought that you could get away with hurting me. But you underestimate the man you were once married to.

 

That fashion show back in February you dragged me to? The one that took place the night before Valentine’s Day? I saw _everything_.

 

I remembered when you asked me to go with you to the show. You rarely ever invite me to see behind-the-scenes of your work as a designer. I couldn’t help but feel excited. Perhaps this would be a chance to reconnect. Rekindle. Rediscover our marriage.

 

I’d dressed up in that black outfit you love so much. I slicked my hair back. I even wore eyeliner and gloss. Because I wanted you at the end of the night. And I wanted you to love me again.

 

You sat me down on the cushions in the model room where people were getting dressed. I tried not to look or feel uneasy. There was so much skin flashing about. It hurts the eyes like strobe lights in a darkened room do. The air was soaked with the smell of sweat and hairspray. I thought my nose would lose its sense of smell.

 

The women _and_ the men shot me glares every time they passed by me on the couch. Of course they would hate me. Anyone would hate me, a poor Japanese ballet dancer who stole the heart of the world’s hottest, most desirable bachelor. And it was your ring on my finger that bound us as a couple.

 

But rings certainly didn’t stop you.

 

I could see you getting cozy with the other models, stroking their backs, hugging their shoulders, cupping their cheeks, adjusting their shirts and dresses, lingering all over with your touches. I couldn’t take seeing you with them anymore. I couldn’t take hearing that awful techno music chipping away at my eardrums. I couldn’t take the smell of desperation and lust in the air as everyone stripped and dressed for another go at the runway. And another go at the hot Russian fashion designer.

 

So I escaped to the back of the room where there was a water dispenser. I saw you pause as you sent the last of the group of models onto the stage and looked around, to the couch where I’d been sitting, in the crowds, along the walls, but you didn’t see me. Your shoulders relaxed in what must’ve been relief.

 

So you made your way to the makeup mirrors where other models were adding the last touch ups to their faces and hair. You touched one woman’s shoulder. The most beautiful woman there.

 

She had beautiful olive-toned skin, blemish-less face, striking violet eyes, thick brown hair. Her dress was sliding off her shoulder as she leaned in and gave you a wink. You sidled in closer and cupped her cheek and whispered in her ear. She giggled as you pressed something rectangular into her palm, which she tucked away into the front of her dress, down her cleavage as she stared you on. And you stared back. Hungrily.

 

I threw my cup away and started walking toward you, intent on breaking the two of you up. But then you kissed her hard and she slid her fingers up into your silver hair, and returned your kiss with equal passion.

 

I escaped out of the loft rented out for the fashion show and stood on the open balcony outside, staring down twenty flights to the streets below, wondering if I was going to be sick.

 

And then you were there, touching my shoulder.

 

“Sorry for the wait, love,” you said, wrapping your arms around me.

 

And there was nothing else I could say other than a choked, “Congratulations.”

 

You led me away from the balcony, out of the loft, and into the private car twenty stories down from where Sara Crispino and the fashion show were. As I climbed into bed at home, you tucked the sheets around me, kissed my forehead, and whispered, “Did you take your medicine?”

 

In that moment, I forgot that you had been touching models all night, leaving me alone, kissing a beautiful Italian woman at her makeup mirror. I forgot all that you did, because you remembered how much pain I’ve been in the past few weeks.

 

It gets so hard to breathe and walk and do things now. My new heart is getting worse.

 

But everything was forgotten, because you’d remembered my medication.

 

And then that relief was gone, stolen away in darkness and misery and pain, because you told me you needed to go back to the fashion show and accept your award from very important higher ups. You needed to be there for the show’s end. And you needed to be there for Sara Crispino.

 

You didn’t come back until Valentine’s Day, right before midnight.

 

Because you’d spent the rest of the night and the next morning and afternoon in a hotel screwing Sara Crispino.

 

I didn’t know about it until the morning after Valentine’s Day. After you went in to work, I was in the kitchen cutting up oranges for breakfast when the phone rang.

 

It was Sara asking for you. She was wondering if you still had her shirt from last night.

 

I feel it on the horizon. The calm before the storm.

 

I know that you’re going to abandon me soon.

 

-Y.G.

 

**Entry #7**

**June 29, 2015**

Last night I couldn’t sleep. My chest was aching and it was hard to breathe. My throat was sore and dry. I felt like I was breaking out into fever. So I slipped out of our bed and downstairs to the kitchen. I was pouring some of the water from the pitcher into the glass when pain sliced through my chest.

 

I felt it in my heart, lungs, head, and spine. It was white-hot, like holding your skin to a scalding iron and letting it burn through your flesh.

 

The glass of water slipped off the counter when I jerked and it shattered all over the floor. It was so loud. I was afraid of you waking up, so I started cleaning the glass from off the floor. But I heard you rushing down the stairs.

 

Your eyes were tired and angry when they saw me kneeling at the floor. You glared at me, shoved me away from the floor and the glass, and shouted, “Yuuri, what the _hell_ is wrong with you? Get out! Go upstairs!”

 

You’ve never raised your voice at me like that before.

 

-Y.G.

 

**Entry #8**

**July 11, 2015**

 

This morning I was de-thorning roses in the kitchen when you walked in and kissed me goodbye to leave for work. You were almost in your car before I realized you’d left your phone on the counter. A text message had come in.

 

I didn’t really think much about what I was doing. But spouses don’t hide things from each other. So I read the message.

 

It was from Sara, reminding you that you guys had planned to meet at 9:30 PM tonight.

 

The message sat like poison in my heart throughout the rest of the day.

 

I couldn’t take it anymore. So I followed you to Sara’s house when you left work. It was storming hard outside, rain coming down in great big sheets. You got out of the car with an umbrella and walked around to the passenger’s side. You led Sara out under your umbrella and took her inside her house.

 

I opened up the door to my car and stood in the rain until my legs collapsed beneath me. Suddenly I was kneeling in the rain, letting it soak through my hair and my clothes. It mixed in with the tears streaming down my face. I sat there for an hour, letting the chill of the water settle in my bones before I felt numb enough to move without thinking or feeling.

 

I drove back home in silence, mechanically took a shower, and then sat waiting at the dining room table for you to come home.

 

You stumbled in at 11 PM, smiling as if everything was alright. And then you noticed me sitting in the dining room table, silent.

 

I asked to see your phone.

 

You looked at me confused and a little outraged, but you handed it over. Sara’s messages had been deleted. Only mine remained.

 

“Why is it only my messages?” I asked.

 

“What are you talking about, Yuuri? Who else’s messages would I even have in my phone?”

 

“Sara’s. What happened to her messages?”

 

“What are you talking about? She’s texted me here and there a couple times about work and schedules. I don’t know what else you want from me.”

 

“I want you to tell me about the message you received this morning. You met her at 9:30 tonight. I _know_ you did.”

 

“Yuuri, what is going on? What is this about? Why are you following me around, intent on making me out to be the bad guy? Why don’t you believe me when I say nothing happened?”

 

I stormed away from the table to the window and you followed me, demanding to know why I never believe anything you say. You reached out to grab my shoulder and pull me away from the window, but you knocked the giant vase of reeds from the table and the glass shattered on the floor.

 

We stared at the broken glass for a moment before you grabbed my wrist hard and forced me to look at you. “I always pick up after your messes. It’s time you learned to do the same.”

 

I batted your arm away and felt the shout rising in my throat. I didn’t feel numb anymore. “You think that just because you’re a _celebrity_ and a _star_ makes you better than everyone else! You treat everyone around you like they’re not worth your time, like they’re not worthy of you, or your career! You act like after this, we’ll pretend nothing has happened because it’s no longer _worth the time to even think about!_ And you’ll forget that it’s still not okay!”

 

You picked up the vase we’d bought in Greece during our honeymoon and hurled it at the wall in the living room. It shattered the glass on the wall and then shattered on the floor.

 

Everywhere in our house, there was something broken that couldn’t be fixed. So many shards of things that once had been whole.

 

Like us. But we’ve had too many cracks and holes to fix what used to be there.

 

You gripped my shirt and yelled, “Why do you do this, Yuuri? Why do you act like this? Just because you have a disease doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want!”

 

The pain in my chest was so bad, I couldn’t help but wail. The words you screamed at me tore through my flesh and shattered my heart like all the shards that littered our floor. I’d never felt a pain so awful in my existence. Not even the weeks and months after the surgery when my heart began to fail did it ever feel as painful as this moment.

 

My soul reached out to yours and you shoved it away and raked through it with serrated knives, slicing over and _over_ and _OVER_ again until I couldn’t breathe or think through the pain.

 

I loved you so much.

 

I loved you so long ago.

 

And now there’s nothing but emptiness and shards of things that once were whole.

 

My doctors told me a couple days ago that my heart won’t last. Any moment now it could fail on me.

 

After you leave me, I think my heart will hurt so much that it will have to break, so it can never be forced back together and be shattered again later.

 

-Y.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't thank you guys enough for all the comments!!! After receiving so many, I couldn't stop myself from sitting down to write another chapter not an hour after posting chapter 2:)
> 
> And now it gets a little happier from here on out. Viktor has an idea of how to make things better for Yuuri;)


	4. It Makes Us New

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fateful reunion...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No warnings that I can think of. This is really just a filler chapter. Things will definitely pick up in the next one ;)

**Viktor Nikiforov**

**December 1, 2016**

 

**12:22 PM**

“I know,” Viktor murmured quietly, twisting his fingers in his lap. He met the concerned eyes of Doctor Ivanov from his leather chair before the man’s desk. “I know that Aleksandr’s heart is Yuuri’s now. But I don’t understand why Yuuri is still sick. Why isn’t the heart taking?”

 

Ivanov let out an exhausted sigh and slumped back in his seat. “The surgery went well for Yuuri. The heart- er... _ Aleksandr’s _ heart was a perfect match for Mr. Katsuki. But Yuuri’s body is just too weak and too diseased to keep sustaining a foreign organ. Since his body is too weak, there is little we can do. Surgery would kill him. Finding another heart for him is also near impossible at this point in time anyway.”

 

“Well then we try harder! It’s our duty as physicians and as doctors to provide our patients with unmatched treatment. It’s our obligation to sacrifice everything for another’s happiness. It is our job to be there for those in need, especially the ones unable to help themselves.”

 

Ivanov twirled a pen from his desk in his fingers and narrowed his eyes at Viktor. “You should know by now, Viktor Nikiforov, that medicine does not cure all sickness. Medicine does not solve all problems. Eventually, one must accept that life is life and death is death and both are given to every individual regardless of whether or not they deserve them.”

 

Viktor looked down into his lap, studying his twisting hands. “But I can solve this problem,” he whispered quietly.

 

***

 

“What the hell are you doing, Viktor?” JJ questioned, watching Viktor fly about the EMT office room, stuffing his clothes into a duffel bag and clearing away his desk. He pulled his uniform from the locker, folded it, and set it on the bare desk.

 

Viktor didn’t even look up at him as he answered. “Yuuri’s husband wasn’t there for him. I wasn’t there for Aleksandr. So this time, I’m going to live for both of them.”

 

JJ raised his eyebrows and pushed off from the doorframe he’d been leaning against. “What are you talking about? I don’t understand.”

 

Viktor’s lips twisted into a frown as he recalled Yuuri’s journal entries full of painful memories of his negligent, hurtful husband. After he’d read through the entries, he’d turned to the next page only to find the rest of the journal covered in Japanese scrawl. He couldn’t read the rest of Yuuri’s journal, but he knew they probably said the same things.

 

“Yuuri’s husband isn’t here for him. Not now. Probably not ever. So I’m going to live his life now. I’m going to spend the rest of Mikhail Gorbovich’s life being there for Yuuri.”

 

JJ grasped his shoulders incredulously. “You’re telling me that you’re going to  _ pretend  _ to be one of the most famous celebrities in the world? For a dying man? Viktor, what the hell?”

 

The silver-haired man shrugged his hands off and stuffed the last of his belongings into the bag. He slammed his copy of the EMT key on the desk next to the uniform and stormed out of his office, JJ hot on his heels. “I’ve already decided, JJ. You can’t change my mind. I have to do this. For him, Aleksandr, and for myself.”

 

JJ sighed. “Alright, alright. I know I can’t change your mind. But have you really thought about this? Are you sure you can even pretend to be Yuuri’s ex husband? I’m pretty sure Yuuri’s gonna see through your disguise pretty fast.”

 

Viktor chuckled. “I thought the same thing too. But it occured to me that on the night we rescued him from the car, he’d mistaken me for his ex. For just a moment. So I looked up pictures of his husband online. We match quite closely actually.”

 

JJ was already pulling out his phone and searching for the face of the man behind designer clothing. His eyes widened as he scrolled through the pictures. “Damn. That’s so weird! You look just like him, except with longer hair. That’s freaking creepy.”

 

Viktor laughed. “I’m going to the salon right now. I’m cutting off all my hair. I need to look exactly like him for this to work.”

 

JJ stared at him aghast. “I don’t even know what to say, Viktor. You’re insane.”

 

“I’m perfectly sane. I know exactly what to do now, JJ. I’m sorry that I’m leaving now, though.”

 

JJ sighed and clapped his shoulder. “It’s for the best. Do what you need to do, Viktor. Just try not to get arrested, alright? Friend or not, I’m not busting you out of jail.”

 

Viktor beamed and turned to exit the hospital building. He hitched his duffel bag high up on his shoulder and turned his face to the sun, grinning. It was a new day today and the sun was just proclaiming the birth of a new life for Viktor. A life that involved Mikhail Gorbovich.

 

_ Guess I’ll have to change my name _ , Viktor thought as he turned toward the salon a couple blocks away.

 

If he was going to impersonate Mikhail, he’d have to really study the man. Body language, dialects, slurs, and facial expressions would have to be copied to the best of Viktor’s ability if he was going to succeed in tricking Yuuri. But at the end of it, everything would be worth it.

 

Viktor had made an awful mistake in not showering Aleksandr with the love he deserved. Instead he shunned his husband, forced him to jump through hoops in an effort to claim even a remote trace of Viktor’s attention. Doing so had cost his life.

 

But Viktor wouldn’t let the same happen to Yuuri and Mikhail. Even if the latter didn’t really deserve it. Viktor just wanted Yuuri to feel he had been loved before his heart failed him.

 

Impersonating Mikhail was the only way. Yuuri had already fallen in love with the man. Viktor wouldn’t ask the Japanese angel to fall in love with him too. Let Yuuri have his ex husband. Let Yuuri know that he was truly loved by the man he’d given his first heart to.

 

Viktor reached the salon and stepped inside the little building. The air smelled of expensive hair products and sang with the din of whirring hair dryers and crinkling foil. Viktor took a seat in one of the plastic chairs and pulled the first magazine he saw off the little glass coffee table.

 

He flipped through the glossy pages, eyes skipping over the words to peruse the photos. He stopped when he read the words:

 

**Mikhail Gorbovich’s New Line of Men’s Cologne**

 

_ So he isn’t just into clothes _ , Viktor noted, rolling his eyes as he scanned the photo sponsoring the cologne. The muscular man was being pampered by a gaggle of scantily clad women and all were giving the camera their most seductive gazes. It was almost comedic how much the picture wanted to sell such an intimate brand of cologne. It couldn’t smell  _ that  _ good. 

 

He tore the scented card out from between the pages and held it up to his nose.

 

Actually, while the man who sponsored the line wasn’t worth much thought, the cologne certainly was. It was spicy and woodsy, with an undertone of citrus that carried a sexy, seductive fragrance through his olfactory system. He’d have to get some. Perhaps Yuuri would enjoy the smell.

 

Viktor turned the card over and read the title on the cologne bottle.

 

**Stammi Vicino**

 

_ Stay Close to Me _ , Viktor translated. How very coincidental.

 

A hairdresser called his name and Viktor set the magazine back on the table. The woman blushed when he rounded the front desk and came into view. She smiled brightly and led him through the hall, keeping a hand on his shoulder as if Viktor would get lost in the small salon. The silver-haired man tried not to grimace at her advances, instead walked stiffly as she dug her manicured nails into the meat of his shoulder.

There were a few women and a couple of men getting haircuts in the room. Some of them talked excitedly with the hairdressers, and their voices carried over the sound of a buzzing shaver and the hum of the hooded hair dryers. Viktor slid into the black styling chair and the woman’s hands were upon him immediately, seizing his hair like a child seizes an interesting little creature from off the ground.

 

The woman trailed her fingers through it, tugging and twisting, eyes growing wider in delight with every stroke. Viktor wondered if cutting his hair was a bad idea.

 

“Sorry,” the woman gushed. “I rarely see men with such beautiful, long hair these days. And the color is absolutely gorgeous. Is this your actual color? Virgin hair? It doesn’t look dyed as far as I can tell. How magnificent. Oh, I just can’t help myself.” 

 

Viktor sighed but didn’t answer her questions as the woman continued, “So what were you looking for? A trim? Some layering?”

 

“I want you to cut it all off,” Viktor smiled pleasantly.

 

The woman froze, hands still curled in his hair. “I’m sorry?”

 

“I want all of it cut off. Really short. I have pictures of how I want it to look,” Viktor smiled, tugging his phone out from his pocket. He opened the folder of photos he’d saved of Mikhail in various poses from the internet. He wanted the stylist to cut his hair exactly like Yuuri’s ex husband.

 

Viktor turned the phone around to show the stylist. She flipped through the pictures, growing paler and paler with every swipe of her fingers.

 

“Are you sure about this, Mr. Nikiforov?”

 

“Yes. Quite sure,” Viktor responded with an easy smile.

 

The hairdresser asked the same question five more times. Once while shampooing his hair, once while washing the shampoo out of his hair, while she was towel-drying it , while she combed through the slick locks, and then once more as she held the scissors to the first section of parted hair wrapped in a rubber band.

 

Every time, Viktor gave the same acquiescing nod.

 

The hairdresser sighed and trailed her fingers once more longingly over the ponytail of silver hair before positioning the scissors and shearing off the section.

  
  


 

**Yuuri Katsuki**

**December 4, 2016**

 

**10:29 AM**

“Yuuri, we’ll figure this out. It’ll be alright. I swear I’ll spend hours tonight looking into the media gossip. We don’t know yet if the rumors are true,” Phichit murmured in Yuuri’s ear as he embraced his best friend.

 

Yuuri offered a weak smile in return, but he knew the truth. Mikhail was back in Moscow and it was only a matter of time before his ex began looking for him. Yuuri didn’t know what the man wanted from him, but just thinking about it made something heavy and cold sink low in his belly. Whenever Mikhail wanted something, he usually got it at the expense of others-- mostly at the expense of Yuuri.

 

“I’ll be fine, Phichit. You don’t have to worry about me,” Yuuri answered. He bent over and slid the strap of his dancing bag over his shoulder. “I’ll see you later, Phichit,” he called and trotted down the stairs of the ballet studio. 

 

He needed to get out and walk around for a while to clear his mind. Things were moving too fast again. First, it was the call from Doctor Ivanov and Doctor Feltsman telling him his test results had come in and weren’t presenting anything  _ ideal _ . The tissues in his heart were weakening. His body was fighting against a heart that belonged to someone else.

 

He could  _ feel  _ it inside him. There was a tearing and ripping of his cells and his heart while they fought each other for dominance in his body. He could feel himself weakening when he walked downstairs in the morning to cut oranges for breakfast, or when he danced, or when he walked to the bus stop and felt so out of breath by the time he was inside the vehicle that he bent over, and could only hang from the straps overhead in complete exhaustion.

 

His heart was failing him again. 

 

This time, there wouldn’t be another chance.

 

And then everything was made worse from the text he’d received from Phichit this morning. Mikhail Gorbovich had been spotted somewhere in the city by some press. People were already speculating, already gossiping about whether Mikhail would happen to stray close to his old home. Close to  _ Yuuri _ .

 

Could he handle that confrontation? What would Yuuri even say to the man he’d once loved? To a man he still loved in some poor, besotted way? And  _ why  _ had he come back? Did he know that Yuuri’s heart was failing him again? Was he here out of  _ pity _ ?

 

The sharp ringing of his phone jolted him out of his thoughts. He cursed as the vibrating device slipped out of his shocked fingers and clattered to the sidewalk. Yuuri bent down to pick it up and froze at the ‘unknown number calling,’ flashing on the screen.

 

Was it Mikhail?

 

Yuuri tenderly clicked to accept the call and raised the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

 

_ “Is he here?” _ The voice was low and smooth over the line, filling Yuuri with both shock and pain all at once.  _ “Mikhail?” _

 

Yuuri crumbled at the name. 

 

Tears sprang to the surface of his eyes and threatened to spill down his cheeks. His heart was racing in his chest now, barrelling away in its cavity at the hurt from its surgical scar and the scar left behind after Mikhail had turned his back on Yuuri.

 

But oh! To hear that voice again sent warmth even through his chest. As much as he hated to admit it, he was still in love with Mikhail. There was no denying it.

 

Yuuri wiped his eyes. “He’s not in Italy anymore.”

 

_ “No. He has returned.” _ The voice softened in his ear, as if its speaker truly regretted the time he spent away from Yuuri and chasing after the Italian model from his fashion show.

 

Yuuri blinked slowly and began taking measured steps down the sidewalk. All this excitement were truly destroying the heart in his chest. His whole torso felt heavy and pained, as if he’d run a marathon rather than exchange a couple words with his ex husband.

“How long will he stay?” Yuuri whispered and turned down the alley between a hole-in-the-wall Russian soup kitchen and an electronics store. He headed toward the steps between both buildings that led up to the street leading directly home. It was a shortcut he didn’t know if he’d need.

 

_ “He will not go anymore,” _ the voice promised, rising with intent. It echoed through the phone and all around Yuuri. It was as if Mikhail were really there, following behind him ready to take hold of his shoulder and pull Yuuri roughly into the circle of his arms.

 

“And is he not familiar with the scandal running about him and the Italian model?” Yuuri whispered bitterly into the phone. What kind of game was being played here? What did Mikhail want with this senseless pronoun game.

 

Yuuri steeled his resolve against letting Mikhail get to him. Not after what he’d done. Mikhail’s cheating had only accelerated Yuuri’s decline in health.

 

He shuddered as he remembered those dark days, dethorning roses in the kitchen, plagued with the memory of Mikhail’s cheating. Yuuri remembered the days when he couldn’t get out of bed, because his heart was thrumming painfully in his chest and his body was wracked with miserable tremors that left him feeling sick. And while he writhed in agony on the bed, his husband had writhed in another bed in a hotel with another woman for sickeningly different reasons.

 

_ “All is forgotten. Her name is forgotten and not used, because without you-” _

 

“Without me, the finer. Avoid the hassle, right?” Yuuri finished, smiling slightly under his breath. He couldn’t help it anymore. He remembered these games from the earlier days. Teasing, sarcastic finishes to the other’s sentences. 

 

He heard a chuckle on the other end of the line that sent him fluttering with warmth.

 

_ “Oh he knows there will be hassle. He’s already familiar with people bothering him now.” _

 

Yuuri smiled sadly and set one foot on the stairs. “He’ll get used to it, gradually….He’ll get used to it alone.”

 

_ “Why?” _ The voice struck Yuuri with the strength of a bolt of lightning. 

 

Maybe he hadn’t considered this when imagining how his conversation with Mikhail might somehow go. Yuuri always feared that if he saw Mikhail again, his ex husband would demand even more than Yuuri could give.

 

But Yuuri hadn’t given much thought to the idea that he was afraid of confrontation because of how much it would hurt Mikhail. His ex husband must not know the extent of Yuuri’s prognosis.

 

How do you tell someone you loved (and still do) that you’re  _ dying _ ?

 

Yuuri froze on the steps and squeezed the phone tighter in his hand. “I’ll be gone soon,” he whispered to the top of the steps, to the receiver on the other line. A soft breeze in the air stirred the strands of his hair around like the acquiescing caress of a mother’s hand.

 

“Where are you going?” The voice came from behind him, hesitant and soft.

 

“A place very far away,” Yuuri answered. The wind picked up for a moment, tugging at his clothes and his hair, leaving gooseflesh on his arms as it swirled away with the aftertaste of bitter ice.

 

“Ah. You’re going to a place where you can forget your own self.”

 

Yuuri surprised himself by letting out a loud laugh. It echoed up the steps and along the walls of the buildings crowding the alleyway. He stood quietly for a moment, listening to the sound as it was carried away over the rest of the steps and disappeared into the open air ahead.

 

“And if you go there, I’ll have no choice but to follow,” the voice was right next to his ear now.

 

Yuuri turned just as a hand grasped his shoulder tightly. The Japanese man let out a quiet gasp and whirled to face the stranger that had followed him through the alleyway and halfway up the steps.

 

The man before him looked just as Yuuri remembered from their last days together. His skin was pale and smooth after long, arduous applications of skin products in the bathroom before bed and in the mornings. Silken, silver hair fell in neat strands over the left side of his face, brushing the frosted tips of his eyelashes and trailing against his cheekbones. His eyes were dark blue and light blue all at once in a dizzying kaleidoscope of ocean colors that made Yuuri weak in the knees.

 

His lips were turned up slightly, sweetly, waiting for a response from Yuuri that could be relieving or heartbreaking.

 

Yuuri felt his heart shatter and remake itself all at once. The tears flowed down his cheeks, unable to be kept at bay of the sight of the man who held all of his heart. 

 

The rest of it anyway. 

 

Yuuri let out a soft laugh, but the wheezing of his heart strangled up his throat, and soon he was sobbing instead.

 

“Crying like a baby, love? Babysitters,  _ behold _ ,” the silver-haired man marveled and brushed the back of his hand lightly down Yuuri’s cheek.

 

Yuuri turned his face into the palm and shuddered with laughter and relief.

 

The hand curled against his cheek, trailed over the side of his face, and twisted up into the hair at the back of his head. Yuuri was drawn into the man’s arms, melting into the touch of skin against his and fingers twisting the hair at the nape of his neck around and around.

 

Yuuri turned into the man’s chest and buried himself in the shirt that smelled like that awful cologne Mikhail had slapped his name onto to entice more revenue for Yuuri’s medical bills. He rested his cheek against the soft cloth of the man’s shirt and felt the familiar bump of the collarbone against his skin.

 

He couldn’t stop laughing and sobbing and drawing the man closer to his body in an effort to achieve impossible closeness. He wanted to climb into the man embracing him and feel their souls intertwined in familiarity and warmth and homeliness. Being in the man’s arms felt like  _ home _ . A home Yuuri had forgotten existed when their relationship was broken and they were separated.

 

He heard a soft chuckle that rumbled through the man’s chest and into his ear. The man rested his cheek on the top of Yuuri’s head and trailed his nose lightly down his temple and neck to rest in the space between Yuuri’s neck and shoulder.

 

The man breathed deeply and hugged Yuuri closer, babbling quietly in Russian, so soft, Yuuri could barely hear it. But he understood the sentiment perfectly.

 

He’d missed this feeling of being hugged so tightly that it seemed nothing could harm him. In the circle of his lover’s arms, nothing, not even his own heart, could break him.

 

In that moment, both were intertwined, physically and emotionally. Souls that had been shredded were stitched and patched together at the seams they had once so violently been ripped apart at. Both hearts beat in the same languishing rhythm. And though one of them choked and lagged and seemed to falter in its cavity, it was ushered along with the promise of relief and warmth.

 

For now, Yuuri could feel that the edge his heart had been slipping over now seemed like a more distant future. He had time now, to heal and be healed before the respite his heart had been given was used up and he tumbled over into the sweet abyss for good.

 

But the formidable future that loomed still overhead couldn’t break the warmth he felt now in Mikhail’s arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is gonna have feels and angst and forgiveness and fluff all combined into one really long chapter. (It will be long because I have many many many plans). 
> 
> Oh, remember when I said I would finish this whole story by the end of January? Yes. I lied again, I know. I lie a lot. Technically you could blame it on college restarting and a bit of writer's block. Those things tend to really halt progress. But I have an idea now of my schedule and when I can fit more writing time in.
> 
> For now, just know that I'll post a chapter every week or every other week. 
> 
> I just want to take some time to put in detail. It's why the chapters are (usually) always so long. There's a lot to say in a story that deals with stuff like this, and I want to present the emotion of it in a way that you guys can really feel and understand!
> 
> As always, read, kudo, or comment if you'd like. I enjoy getting feedback and encouragement and seeing what you guys take from every chapter. Just repeating a favorite line or writing an entire essay about what you were feeling at every moment in the story is enough to keep me smiling all day.
> 
> Thanks for keeping up with this story, everyone! You're the best!!!


	5. The Melody Carries On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Love is lost and regained...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy belated Valentine's Day! Here, have a chapter...

**Yuuri Katsuki**

**December 4, 2016**

 

**10:56 AM**

Yuuri twisted the knob to the front door and swung it open. He peered down the hallway and into the sitting room ahead cloaked in shadow. The curtains and blinds he’d drawn that morning now blocked the light from coming into the windows. It seemed so dark and uninviting in there, just pale light making cold glints on the porcelain vases, the glass table, and the white walls all around. He couldn’t let Mikhail see the state of the house.

 

“Wait,” Yuuri cried, turning around just as Mikhail stepped into the doorway.

 

“What?” He laughed as Yuuri pressed insistently against his chest, shoving the silver-haired Russian back outside.

 

Yuuri smiled. “Just go outside for a minute. Then you can come back in.”

 

Mikhail’s eyebrows rose.

 

The Japanese’s heart sank in fear. Was he asking for too much? Did Mikhail not want to go back out? Should he explain himself or…?

 

But Mikhail’s eyes only softened and a gentle smile lifted the corners of his lips. He squeezed Yuuri’s hands in his own and pressed soft kisses against his fingers. “Your wish is my command,” he murmured and turned to go back out the door.

 

Yuuri grinned as the door clicked behind him and hurried down the hallway to the living room. He stowed his bag in the closet and began opening the blinds in the windows. Beautiful, golden light streamed into the room, spilling over the glass tables and vases, casting buttery rays on the plants decorating the stands in the sitting room, shining against the fibers of the fluffy carpet on the floor. 

 

Yuuri surveyed the room and began a nitpicky hunt to straighten out the glass bowl of oranges on the coffee table and the vase of reeds in the back corner of the room.

 

He scanned the space for a moment longer before grinning and throwing himself onto the couch. He sprawled against two cushions for a moment before manically straightening, back pressed against the cushion, and one leg primly crossed over the other.

 

He heard a couple knocks at the door and then the handle jiggled. Mikhail stepped into the house again and called out, “Yuuri, I’m home!”

 

The Japanese man laughed and sprang up off the couch as his ex lover bounded into the sitting room. He launched himself at Mikhail, gripping him tightly as arms settled at his waist and pulled him into the Russian man’s warm embrace. Mikhail nuzzled his cheek against Yuuri’s hair and murmured lowly, “Was that good?”

 

Yuuri laughed and raised his head, pressing a soft kiss against Mikhail’s cheek. “Hmm, could’ve been better. You forgot to leave your shoes by the door.”

 

The Russian man trailed his fingers down Yuuri’s temple and tucked the loose strands of hair behind his ear. Yuuri leaned into his embrace, closing his eyes as Mikhail stroked his face with the soft tips of his fingers.

 

“I’ve missed you coming home like this,” he whispered.

 

The Russian man’s eyes softened, “Yuuri-”

 

“ _ Please _ ,” Yuuri interrupted and squeezed his eyes against the pain flooding the weakened cavities of his heart. “Please. Can we start again? I can’t take it anymore. I can’t take being away from you anymore.” For the second time that day, the tears spilled out of his eyes and down his cheeks. His heart stuttered painfully in his chest as he awaited Mikhail’s answer, dreading another excuse or another sentiment that didn’t mean anything.

 

Yuuri wondered what it would be like to be broken again and shuddered against the thought. If Mikhail left him again, there would be no coming back from it. He would die, from heart failure or a broken one if he was cast aside once more by the Russian player. There was no surviving the pain of another rejection. There was no point in surviving alone.

 

But Mikhail pulled him into a tight embrace and tucked his nose into the spot where Yuuri’s neck met his shoulder. “Of course, love. No more wasting time. I’m here, darling, and I won’t go anymore.”

 

Mikhail crooned sweetly to him as Yuuri sobbed harder in his embrace. The silver-haired Russian stroked his back and his hair as Yuuri clung to the folds of his shirt. He moved them back toward the couch as Yuuri’s knees gave out. The Japanese man was swept into his embrace and tucked against his chest like a small child to cry out all his pain and his relief into a stanchion of warmth. 

 

They stretched out against the couch, Yuuri’s back pressed against the cushions. His sobs became quiet hitches of breath as Mikhail held him and spoke soft Russian in his ear. The lyrical words blended and twisted in Yuuri’s ear, carrying him along a serene melody that he could blanket himself in and be sheltered from the cold.

 

Yuuri was being put back together by the beautiful man holding him in his arms, but they had a long way to go to achieve forgiveness. This was just the start. They needed to talk about the divorce, about Mikhail’s cheating, about his diagnosis and what that meant, and…

 

Yuuri shuddered. He didn’t want to think about those things. Not now.

In this moment, he was safe from the outside world and its harsh reality. In Mikhail’s arms, he didn’t have to worry about his next doctor’s appointment and how long they estimated he would live for. He didn’t have to worry about where Mikhail had disappeared off to for the longest time after their fight, or  _ who  _ he had gone to. He didn’t have to worry about whether or not Mikhail would stay this time for the end.

 

He hoped Mikhail would stay.

 

The end was a chasm looking down into a darkness deeper than anything he’d ever known.

 

And he was afraid.

  
  


**Viktor Nikiforov**

**December 5, 2016**

 

**9:30 AM**

“Sasha,” Viktor breathed.

 

_ I’m sorry. _

 

“I don’t know what I’m doing.”

 

_ I’m sorry. _

 

“I just…”

 

_ I’m sorry you had to marry a git like me. I’m sorry you fell in love with someone who only got you killed. I’m sorry your husband is falling in love with another man.  _

 

_ I just… _

 

“Need to help him.”

 

Viktor sank to his knees in the wet grass, uncaring of the mud sticking to the fronts of his trousers. He imagined what Aleksandr would say to him, sprawled out on the sofa in Viktor’s office in the ER.

 

_ You can never stick with things, can you, Vitya?  _ He would say and shoot him those amused side-eyes, half entertained and half exasperated.  _ Why do you start things you can’t finish? _

 

“I don’t know,” Viktor breathed and laughed.

 

_ You know I can never change your mind, dear. I know you better than anyone. You do the things you feel you need to do. _

Viktor winced. Doing the things he felt were right had never actually fixed anything in his life. Most of the time he just made things worse.

 

But his heart was burning this time, fluttering away so excitedly in the cage of his heart that he couldn’t help but wonder. His heart had been still and silent for so long. Then Yuuri had come  along to wake it again with a single word.

 

Viktor  _ had _ to do this. He  _ had  _ to be Mikhail. If he left now, Yuuri would break down and give up his fight to live. He would die alone and unloved and unknowing of anyone else in the world that felt even remotely the same way. 

 

Yuuri’s heart still breathed Aleksandr’s fight. It still ached for completion and relief. It still burned to know that it could finally rest, appreciated for what it once was.

 

“I’m not giving up, Aleksandr,” Viktor murmured, resting his hand on the head of the cold tombstone.

 

_ I wouldn’t expect anything less from you, bolvan. _

 

Idiot.

 

Viktor grinned for a moment before tears sprang to the surface of his eyes. His voice broke as he whispered, “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, love.” He hesitated. “And I’m sorry that I’ve given my heart to another. I can’t help it, Sasha. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.” He sobbed and crumpled against the stone.

 

Viktor was drawing into himself, curling up against the ghost of Aleksandr, haunted forever by his failure and yearning for just one more moment. 

 

He squeezed his eyes shut and whimpered against the pain.

 

Was he even doing the right thing? Or was he being selfish again, latching onto the first person that smiled like Aleksandr? Yuuri held his same heart in a failing chest. Was he in the right for tricking Yuuri like this? For pretending to be his old, unworthy lover to selfishly possess the heart that once held a burning, unwavering love for him?

 

But to see the agony in Yuuri’s eyes...to see the fear and the pain when he would ask for things, fully expecting a sharp reprimand or another rejection...Viktor couldn’t stand it.

 

Yuuri gave all his heart to people. He gave all his warmth. He gave all his being, content to be the pillar of light and warmth that everyone could flock to and revel in. Yuuri was selfless and benign when he didn’t have to be. He was forgiving when he didn’t have to be.

 

So Viktor couldn’t help but want to love him in return. Yuuri deserved all that love could be, tenfold.

 

He didn’t deserve a husband who cast him aside and ignored him.

 

Viktor wanted to be the one that Yuuri looked to for strength, for happiness, for love…

 

_ I’m sorry, Sasha, but- _

 

“I have to do this. I have to be there for him.” Viktor wiped the tears from his cheeks and gripped his umbrella leaning against Aleksandr’s stone. He stood up and brushed the wet dirt and grass from his black pants and let his eyes roam the words on the face of the gray rock:

 

**Aleksandr Vladimirovich Nikiforov**

**Mar. 29, 1988-Dec. 25, 2014**

**_Predannyy Muzh_ **

 

“Goodbye, my love,” Viktor whispered and kissed the top of the headstone.

 

He turned away and began picking his way out of the clearing toward the path that led out of the cemetery. The sky above was a twisting cloud of gray, monotonous and heavy in the sky. A slight drizzle picked up, spraying the blades of grass and the leaves of the trees with mist and raindrops.

 

The water prickled against the skin of Viktor’s umbrella and he let the soft sound carry his mind away. 

 

In a few minutes, he would reach the bus stop and shake his umbrella of the water staining its surface before climbing into the rumbling vehicle. He would stop near the ballet studio to wait for Yuuri in the lobby, watching as the black-haired angel picked his way down the stairs long after a group of rowdy children came tumbling down the steps first. Viktor would draw the Japanese man into his arms and lead him home under the cover of the umbrella. Inside, they would leave their shoes by the front door, giggling at the water making puddles on the floor in the hallway before rushing to find towels as the cold air of the house snapped at their wet skin.

 

Viktor smiled and squeezed the handle of the umbrella tighter.

  
  


**Yuuri Katsuki**

**December 8, 2016**

 

**12:15 PM**

Doctor Ivanov was busy studying the wall of charts and scans of Yuuri’s brain, hip cocked, and fingers tugging at his chin. Mikhail squeezed his hand in reassurance, probably trying to comfort himself more than comfort Yuuri. The Japanese man had been to many of these meetings before and they always concluded with the same words:

 

_ Your body is not reacting well to the foreign heart. We need more tests to ascertain the best treatment. _

It was the same spiel over and over again. Frankly, Yuuri wondered if there were even treatment options left for him to try out. The others had failed to cure him of his body’s rebellion against the adopted heart. Really they just managed to slow the process of death and prolong his suffering.

 

Yuuri had never spent so much money on medications to ease the pain.

 

“Your body is still weakening, Yuuri. I need to study the scans longer, see if there is something we’ve missed…” the doctor’s voice trailed off in his thought as he pulled the scans off the board to bring them closer to his face. Doctor Ivanov sighed and shook his head before returning the prints back to their places.

 

He slumped into the chair at his desk and folded his arms on top of the expensive wood. “All I can tell you now is to drink more water and restrict your intake of salty foods.”

 

_ Damn _ , Yuuri sighed.  _ No more katsudon _ .

 

Well, it wasn’t like he was going to make it out of this alive. One bowl wouldn’t do too much to change the stakes. Or two.

 

Mikhail shifted in his seat and rested his elbows on his knees, squinting at the scans.

 

“What about a new set of digoxins and angiotension-converting enzyme inhibitors? His heart is struggling harder and harder to contract. An ACE will only decrease the workload on his heart with widened blood vessels. And the digoxin will help to strengthen those muscle contractions as well.”

 

Yuuri shot him an astonished look. “How do you-”

 

Mikhail grinned sheepishly. “I realized that I haven’t...put much effort into understanding what you’re going through, so…”

 

Yuuri raised an eyebrow. “So you just decided to memorize a cardiology textbook instead?”

 

“Perhaps.”

 

Doctor Ivanov’s eyes followed their exchange and he chuckled. “While, uh,  _ Mikhail _ , has devoted his attention to the study of the circulatory system, Yuuri’s treatment just doesn’t follow a simple base treatment. We have tried many different volumes and types of ACEs and digoxins. They have only slowed the decay of his heart. The organ, however, just cannot sustain itself against the rest of the body’s defense. It sees the new organ as a threat.”

 

Mikhail’s brows drew together and he frowned. Yuuri squeezed his hand, wondering why the other man was looking so put off by the statement.

 

“Well,” Yuuri smiled, “If I remember correctly, you told me to start another diet plan. Hmm, that’s always what I’ve needed. Fat reduction. And to think most weight-loss programs require intensive exercise to go along.”

 

Mikhail laughed. “You’re not out of the doghouse yet, Yuuri. Maybe I’ll install a treadmill in the house.”

 

“Damn. I thought ballet would’ve been enough.”

 

“Not quite, my dear. If I don’t see you walk out of the studio room panting and exhausted, we’re walking home.”

  
  


**Viktor Nikiforov**

**December 8, 2016**

 

**9:36 PM**

“I still haven’t fallen asleep yet, Mikhail,” Yuuri murmured and rested his cheek against Viktor’s shoulder.

 

The Russian man laughed and squeezed the Japanese angel against his side. He ran his palms softly up and down Yuuri’s arm before clasping their fingers together. “Fine,” he whispered, “I’ll tell you another one. You’ll fall asleep this time for sure.”

 

Yuuri shifted in his arms. “Your storytelling skills are severely lacking. I really doubt you will, Gorbovich.”

 

“You’re mean, Yuuri,” Viktor whined against his hair, burying his nose into the black curls and breathing in the scent of the beautiful man in his arms. He felt the vibrations of Yuuri’s laughter rumbling through his chest. His heart basked in the warmth of their tender moment.

 

“Alright, this is a true story,” Viktor began, tracing the words into Yuuri’s palm. The man in his arms snuggled closer.

 

“There was a husband and a wife who loved each other dearly. Their love glimmered brighter than any star, was stronger than steel, sang softer and more divinely than any melody, and carried a fire that could ward off any creeping tendril of darkness. Their love was pure and beautiful and true.

 

“But the husband was an energetic man, always walking swiftly, purposefully forward, and his wife...lagged painfully behind. She could never understand why her husband hurried around in life, hastening about in one direction and another and another in a confusing web of paths and steps and detours and shortcuts. She could never understand why he wanted to move about in life as if life wasn’t meant to be lived.

 

“And her husband wondered why she liked to go slow. She lived almost painfully steady. There was only one path, one  that was straight and long, without curves and bends and shortcuts. She lived every moment in life as if it were her last, content to revel in every second life could offer to her. If she was on the earth, she was going to exist being thankful always for the gift of another moment, or half moment, or tenth of a moment.

 

“Although they lived life like opposites, they never abandoned each other or their love that could outmatch any other. They waited for each other, lifted up one another, because their love was deeper than any ocean and entwined more tightly than any bed of vines.”

 

Yuuri sighed as Viktor finished his story and shuffled closer to press his face against the Russian man’s chest.

 

“What’s wrong?” Viktor asked him quietly.

 

“I think the story is too sad.” Yuuri toyed with Viktor’s fingers.

 

Viktor pressed his lips to the nape of Yuuri’s neck and squeezed him tighter. “Why?”

 

“Whether they keep loving each other or not, they don’t stay together. There was a ‘but’ in that story. It’s unfinished. They promised to care for one another.... _ but.. _ .they probably don’t get to keep what they have.” Yuuri rested his nose in the hollow of Viktor’s throat and closed his eyes, listening to the soft breathing of the man holding him.

 

Viktor stroked his back wistfully, watching as Yuuri nodded off and went limp in his arms. “It’s true,” he whispered into the empty air of the bedroom, filled only by the sound of Yuuri’s quiet breathing. Viktor scooped him up into his arms and then rested him carefully in his bed. The man in his arms groaned at the loss of warmth and snuggled eagerly into his pillow as he was deposited among the sea of blankets. Viktor smiled and drew the covers up, tucking the blankets tightly around the beautiful angel’s body.

 

He sat at Yuuri’s bedside, stroking his hair. “But they might be able to regain it,” Viktor murmured, pressing his lips to the other man’s forehead. 

  
  


**Yuuri Katsuki**

**December 9, 2016**

 

**5:16 PM**

“Alright, class. Good work today. We’ll pick up our  _ Nutcracker  _ practice on Monday. Remember that your auditions are on the fourteenth. You have a bit less than a week to make last-minute adjustments,” Yuuri called out to his students packing up their bags.

 

They nodded to him and swept out of the door, laughing and giggling as they discussed their plans for the weekend- birthday parties, travels, tv time. Yuuri smiled after them and gathered his own things before signing out and locking the dance studio behind him.

 

The children in his Elementary Division were phenomenal dancers, eager to learn and be challenged by Yuuri’s expectations in his class. He could already tell that all the girls in his class would be ready to begin pointe by the next year. The boys would be ready to move to strength and conditioning classes, steps, and technique training.

 

Yuuri began his slow walk down the stairs. His chest felt tighter today than it normally did. It was slightly difficult to breathe and it hurt  even worse to exhale. 

 

He needed to take his medication.

 

A soft warning flitted somewhere deep in his mind, reminding him that his new set of medications were losing their effects already. He would need another round or dosage of pills just to be able to walk across the parking lot without doubling over in pain.

 

Yuuri paused at the top of the second staircase. It was no use pretending to be alright anymore. He wasn’t. He was scared and in pain all the time, switching constantly from one moment to the next between wondering what peace death would bring and then fearing the loss of what he had now. 

 

Sometimes he cursed the fact that he couldn’t sleep at night, kept awake by the awful ripping and tearing and pain in his chest as his heart fought for breath and life. His body was ready to give in to the pain, roll belly up in acquiescence and shut down.

 

But Mikhail’s return was keeping Yuuri from giving up entirely.

 

This time felt so different from all the other instances in which Mikhail would come crawling back to him, begging for forgiveness. Mikhail had changed so much in the time they spent apart. He was beautiful and caring and worried for Yuuri’s health. The Russian man that had once shattered his heart was now bent on sealing the pieces together.

 

Yuuri couldn’t help but fall in love with him all over again.

 

“Yuuri!” A bright, cheerful shout cut through his thoughts, almost sending him tumbling down the rest of the steps.

 

It was Mila gliding out from her place behind the desk. She slid up close to him and hugged him hard, laughing, “You’ve bagged quite the man, Yuuri. Oh, you’re going to have so much fun tonight! You need to get home and change.”

 

Yuuri’s eyebrows drew close in confusion. “Change? Why? What’s happening?”

 

Mila beamed at him. “I’m not going to ruin the surprise. Now get out of here, Katsuki!”

 

Yuuri shouldered his bag with a frown and stepped out of the studio, mind twisting at the memory of her words. 

 

What could possibly be happening today that he didn’t know about? Was it some Russian festival or holiday he had forgotten to mark on his calendar? Did he have an appointment somewhere he’d forgotten? That usually didn’t happen. Yuuri was normally proactive when it came to remembering appointments and schedules.

 

It was a friday, the 9th of December-- what could possibly be going on?

 

The answer awaited him as he slumped through the front door of his house, keys dangling from his nervous fingers. He had stressed the whole way home about remembering what he could have forgotten.

 

“Yuuri,” The quiet voice sounded in the sitting room. 

 

The house keys slipped out of Yuuri’s fingers and clattered on the tiled floor. There was a laugh accompanying the figure as he rounded the corner and stepped into the hall.

 

The sound belonged to a dazzling, beautiful man standing, now, right in front of Yuuri, lit by the burned sunlight filtering its last rays into the windows of the house. 

 

He was wearing a light pink collared shirt and bright grey tuxedo vest that only enhanced the shine of his hair. There was a dark gray coat slung over his shoulder, the cuffs lined with a purple that matched the wine-color of his tie. 

 

He was beautiful and elegant and Yuuri could only stand in front of the door, staring at him, dumbfounded.

 

“M-Mikhail,” he stuttered painfully, and the man before him let out a quiet laugh.

 

“Yuuri,” he crooned. “I thought it would be nice to have a little date night tonight. Wouldn’t you agree?”

 

Yuuri nodded, throat painfully dry.

 

“I’ll wait down here for you,” Mikhail winked and smirked at him.

 

Yuuri seized the straps of his dance bag and hurtled up the stairs to his bedroom, marvelling at the fact that he hadn’t tripped and fallen on the way up. He shoved the bag underneath his bed and tore into his closet, fumbling madly along the bars of hanging clothes for any formal outfit that could possibly match with Mikhail’s.

 

It shouldn’t have been hard. His lover was, after all, an expert fashion designer. It still took a painfully long time to decide on a dark collared shirt to match the gray of Mikhail’s coat and a purple tie that resembled the closest shade that his lover was wearing.

 

Yuuri rushed into the bathroom to slick his hair back with a little too much gel and brush his teeth with a mountain of paste.

 

Finished, he glanced once more at his appearance in the mirror with slight unease and then trotted down the stairs to where Mikhail was waiting patiently. The silver-haired Russian offered his arm with a gleaming smile and Yuuri swooned, steadying himself in Mikhail’s embrace.

 

“You’re so beautiful,” the Russian whispered in his ear, pressing a kiss sweetly to his jaw.

 

Yuuri felt arms tighten around his waist and he sank eagerly into Mikhail’s warmth. Fingers slowly trailed down his back, eliciting a bone-deep shiver from the Japanese man. Lips softly touched the skin peeking out from the collar of Yuuri’s shirt and travelled leisurely up his neck to his chin. 

 

The Japanese man let out a quiet moan and curled his fingers into Mikhail’s silken hair. He tilted his head to the side to give the Russian man better access and Mikhail nosed along his jaw, his cheek, the corner of his mouth. 

 

There the trembling lips paused. Yuuri only had to tilt his head slightly to kiss Mikhail and taste the sweetness of his old lover and revel in the intimacy of their joining.

 

But his mind flashed with the memory of Mikhail kissing Sara at the Valentine's Day fashion gala.

 

Yuuri turned his face away, squeezing his eyes shut as he waited for Mikhail’s grip on his shoulder to tighten painfully, his voice to spat at him in anger and rejection…

 

There was only a heavy silence made heavier by Mikhail’s quiet sigh.

 

The Russian man leaned down and pressed his cheek to Yuuri’s chest.

 

They froze there in that moment, Mikhail listening to the drum of Yuuri’s heart and Yuuri stroking his hair in quiet comfort.

 

Mikhail pressed his lips to the spot where he could feel the throbbing of Yuuri’s heart the strongest. “Please don't ever be afraid of me, Yuuri. I will never, ever harm you, especially because of something you didn't want me to do. I promise you, Yuuri, that I will only love you and care for you and be here for you.”

 

Yuuri kissed the top of his head and let out a quiet sob, of gratitude or relief, he didn't know. 

 

But he had never felt warmer than in that moment as he pulled Mikhail up from leaning over and hugged him until he could hear the hitch of the Russian’s breath as his lungs protested the squeeze.

 

“Thank you,” Yuuri whispered and leaned up on his toes to kiss Mikhail’s cheek.

 

The Russian man grinned and clasped their hands together. Like a graceful gentleman, he tenderly kissed the skin of Yuuri’s knuckles and pulled him into his side with a gentle tug.

 

“Shall we?” Mikhail murmured and led him out the door with a smile. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Russian on Aleksandr's grave reads: devoted husband. 
> 
> So this part of the story has 2 chapters now, because I can't put in their date night without making the chapter really hecking long.
> 
> Quick question: do you guys like longer chapters or shorter ones? Most of my updates range between 4k and 6k words, but would you guys prefer shorter chapters? Ones that are like 3000 words?
> 
> Also the next part will be posted some time tonight or early tomorrow morning, so get ready for some fluff!!!
> 
> And just remember that more fluff= more angst, my friends. This story is almost done. Probably just a few more chapters now!
> 
> Thank you guys for your support and comments. You guys made me laugh and smile and I can't thank you enough for doing that for me. Every comment I get just makes me want to keep writing and keep dancing and celebrating in my head. 
> 
> <3 you guys are the greatest!!! See you next chapter...


	6. How We Find Ourselves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Viktor and Yuuri's romantic dinner date...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Viktor goes through some flashbacks. There's a lot of blood and noise. Just be warned.
> 
> Also angst and fluff ahead!!!
> 
> When I said fluff in the last chapter's note, I really didn't mean to serve some angst up along with it. But that just makes the former sweeter, right?

**Viktor Nikiforov**

**December 9, 2016**

**7:56 PM**

 

Viktor pulled Yuuri closer into his side, squeezing the arm cradled against his chest as he tugged the Japanese man along. They walked leisurely down the sidewalk arm in arm as they waited for their reservation in the restaurant to open up. Viktor was a little embarrassed for hurrying Yuuri to get ready so quickly back at the house. Their reservation wasn’t open until 8:15.

 

Yuuri had only smiled at him and murmured that they could pass the time by walking.

 

Viktor was a bit proud of himself for remembering their reservation. When he was with Aleksandr, they had always planned to go to the Café Gallery, but Viktor could never seem to make the reservations. He was always either stuck with another patient being rushed into the ER, in a meeting with higher authority hospital officials, or doing paperwork in his office and forgetful of the passing time.

 

Viktor’s heart sank. He had been an awful husband to Aleksandr.

 

But already Yuuri was making him a better man. Viktor could start to make up for things in small ways, like remembering his reservation to the dinner.

 

“What heavy thoughts are troubling you this time, Mikhail?” Yuuri’s voice startled him out of his thoughts. It took him a moment to answer, because he forgot that he was supposed to be Mikhail.

 

Viktor gave him a tender smile. “Not heavy. I’m just imagining what it will be like to take you to dinner.”

 

Yuuri blushed and offered him a soft smile partly hidden by the high scarf wrapped about his neck. Viktor’s heart shuddered at the sight and he melted at the gorgeous man on his arm.

 

“You’ve taken me to dinner before, Mikhail.” Yuuri laughed. “You’ve never acted like this before.”

 

Viktor’s heart twisted with pain. Yuuri was so blasé with the phrase and it hurt him to see the Japanese man accept rejection so easily.

 

 _This must be what Aleksandr always thought. This must be what Aleksandr told people when you would disappoint him time and time again_. The thought sneered in the back of his mind and Viktor shoved it down, hurt rippling through his chest.

 

He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and pulled Yuuri into the cradle of his arms, burying his face in the silken black hair that gave off the sweet scent of oranges and the gel Yuuri used to slick the strands back. “Hm. I seem to recall telling you that we’re starting over.” He took a step back and raised Yuuri’s hand to his lips. Burgundy eyes watched him as he pressed tender kisses to the knuckles. “I promise I will never be that man again, Yuuri. I will never hurt you.”

 

Yuuri’s eyes searched his for a moment. Viktor watched the sweep of his eyebrows draw together, his lip twisting slightly in thought as he considered Viktor. The Russian man wondered if his cover was blown for a moment before those beautiful eyes softened.

 

Yuuri stepped closer and touched the tips of his fingers to Viktor’s jaw. “I believe you,” he said simply and gripped Viktor’s hand, turning them away and down the sidewalk.

 

Viktor’s heart lurched with so much emotion for the man holding his hand.

 

This felt like a first love. This felt like the first time Viktor had heard the words, _I love you_.

 

His heart was trembling with happiness and exhilaration. He wanted to sprint down the sidewalk at top speed, driven by a sense of untethered triumph. He wanted to throw back his head and rejoice to the on-looking stars and let every person and every thing in the world know that his love was being returned.

 

For so, so long since Aleksandr’s death, Viktor could only trudge through the world like it was filled with tar ready to squeeze and pull him down into the depths of misery and pain. He couldn’t see a life worth living without the bright soul that had once filled his life while working at the hospital.

 

For the longest time after Aleksandr’s death, he couldn’t set even a foot into the ER without feeling remorse and guilt strong enough to send him to his knees. The ER was filled with the horrifying stillness of a flat lining heart monitor, the squealing wheels of the gurney as Aleksandr’s shrouded body was wheeled down the hallway, the shatter of Viktor’s heart when he realized he no longer had a home to go back to.

 

And then he became an empty man.

 

Viktor quit going to work. Yakov had broken into his apartment one morning after Viktor had missed almost two weeks of work. The poor old man had almost had a heart attack when he found Viktor asleep on the floor of the kitchen, two empty vodka bottles and an orange pill container filled with painkillers strewn about the tiled floor. Yakov had thought he’d OD’d and mixed the high-level drugs with alcohol.

 

Viktor had woken up to Yakov screaming, desperately tugging at his body to force him in a sitting position, jamming two fingers into the pulse point of his neck to find a heartbeat. After that experience, Viktor had given up his brief brush with alcoholism, tossed out the painkillers, and spent the next couple years giving and receiving awkward looks every time he had to talk to Yakov.

 

The old man’s terror at the thought of his demise had sobered him up quickly. He couldn’t do something like that again to the man who treated him like a son.

 

Yakov recommended that he become a paramedic, a first-responder in the face of medical emergency. Viktor had accepted the role quickly, finding relief in the fast-paced life of an EMT. His job allowed him to forget the agony still spreading a poison in his heart.

 

But even that life was over for him now.

 

Now he had Yuuri.

 

Viktor stroked the skin of Yuuri’s wrist with his thumb as they crossed a street to get back to the restaurant. Yuuri turned to give him a gentle smile. The curve of his lips was so beautiful that Viktor stopped for a moment to trace them despite the mad blush crawling across Yuuri’s face.

 

“Mikhail,” Yuuri protested, laughing under his breath as he pushed lightly at Viktor’s fingers. “We’re going to miss the reservation.”

 

Viktor grinned and kissed his temple, “They’ll just have to make an exception for the pretty man on my arm.”

 

“Mikhail!” Yuuri’s eyes squeezed shut with laughter and Viktor’s heart did a funny flip in his chest at the sight.

 

“What? I can’t help it,” Viktor grinned. “You’re the most beautiful man on this earth, _solnyshko._ ”

 

Yuuri paused and stared at him, eyes wide. “You’ve never called me that before,” he mumbled.

 

Viktor winced, “Yuuri-”

 

“I know. I know. We’re starting over. It was just…unexpected.” Yuuri’s eyes searched him for so long that Viktor couldn’t help but wonder if he knew something was up. Was he beginning to suspect that Viktor was not Mikhail?

 

“Do you not like it? I don’t have to…call you anything if…” Viktor stumbled desperately around his words, panic forcing his shattering heart to keep on beating.

 

What would happen if Yuuri figured everything out- the deception and the lies? Would he hate him? Would he look at him with distrust and loathing for pretending to be his estranged husband? Would Yuuri tell him to go away and leave him alone? Would Viktor have to live alone again, empty and soulless in this world?

 

“Mikhail? Are you ok? Mikhail? What’s wrong?” He heard Yuuri’s desperate voice in the back of his mind, but he was caught in the memory of his life after Aleksandr’s death and the pain of living so alone in a world without light.

 

A warm hand on his cheek pulled him out of his despondent thoughts. He found himself staring into Yuuri’s endless golden-brown eyes, lost in the delicate swirls of brown and gold. He turned his cheek into Yuuri’s palm and melted against the Japanese man as Yuuri hugged him.

 

Viktor would gladly sink into the mural of Yuuri’s eyes. He would lose himself forever in the beautiful orbs, warmed in the cradle of Yuuri’s arms around him.

 

He felt Yuuri press a sweet kiss to his chin and the underside of his jaw. Viktor tightened his arms around the Japanese man and felt arms tighten around him in return. Yuuri tucked his head underneath Viktor’s chin and went limp against him.

 

Being hugged so tightly by another person was absolutely intoxicating and soothing. One forgets the healing gifts of being wrapped so tightly against someone else, sheltered against the storms of life, lulled by the gentle thrumming of a heart, and warmed by a cordial body. Viktor could stay like this forever.

 

Yuuri brushed his fingers over Viktor’s cheekbone. The Russian man sighed and brought his own hand up to lace his fingers with Yuuri’s.

 

“I didn’t mean to scare you, Mikhail,” Yuuri murmured and squeezed Viktor’s hand. “You caught me by surprise. A _good_ surprise.”

 

Yuuri’s eyes turned down to stare at his feet and a beautiful blush warmed his cheeks. “I _want_ you to call me that,” he mumbled. Impossibly, the blush in his cheeks darkened even more at the statement.

 

Viktor stared at him in surprise. The words bounced and jumbled in his head for a moment before understanding dawned on his face. Yuuri watched with hesitant amusement as Viktor’s face brightened and his mouth curved into a beaming, heart-shaped smile. “ _Yuuri!”_ He cried and pulled Yuuri back into his arms. He felt the Japanese man laugh against him, and the vibrations rattled his heart with joy.

 

“I would stay in the middle of this sidewalk with you forever,” Yuuri murmured against the curve of Viktor’s neck, “but we really do have to make our reservation.”

 

Viktor chuckled and released him, keeping their hands laced together. He tugged Yuuri into his side and they began walking again toward the restaurant.

***

 

“Reservation for Mikhail Gorbovich,” Viktor murmured to the brown-haired woman standing behind the black granite desk, eyes fixed on her computer. The woman turned to him and her eyes widened.

 

“G-Gorbovich you said?” She stuttered and her cheeks reddened.

 

Viktor felt Yuuri’s hand tighten around his. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Yuuri glaring at her.

 

“Yes. We have a reservation at 8:15?”

 

“Right,” the woman mumbled and turned back to her computer, fingers fumbling at the keys, skin burning with red embarrassment.

 

Viktor wondered with amusement whether she recognized the famous name or found him attractive. Either way, it didn’t matter. He had eyes only for Yuuri.

 

The Japanese man was still giving her an unimpressed look when Viktor tugged him against his side and smoothed his hand down Yuuri’s arm. He felt the body against him instantly relax and he turned his head to press his lips against Yuuri’s temple.

 

“Alright. I have your reservation here. You’ll be dining on the Summer Terrace tonight…summer terrace even though it’s winter,” she giggled and trailed off nervously when Yuuri gave her another unimpressed look and Viktor cocked his head at her in confusion. “Ah…just…follow me. I’ll take you up there.”

 

She tripped on her heels as she made her way out from behind the desk. “Sorry,” she murmured, staring at them with wide eyes. With a squeak she snatched two black cards out from behind the desk and took off down the hall toward the entrance to the dining room.

 

Viktor and Yuuri hurried to catch up with her.

 

She led them up a set of stairs to a heavy looking door which she held open for them to step outside.

 

They stared in wonder at the summer terrace.

 

A black canopy stretched over most of the long terrace which wrapped around half of the building. The black silk hung low to the ground and gave the inside of the canopy a darker, more intimate setting.  Under the canopy, tables were covered in draping black cloth and surrounded by red and black cushioned seats. There were candles everywhere in small red and white jars. They were spread across the tables and held in flat red glass sconces that lined the walls. The openings between the silks of the canopy walls showed the glowing city of Moscow in the background and the distant stars in the dark night sky.

 

A bar stretched across the center of the terrace. A few couples were leaning against the black granite countertop, colorful cocktails and drinks in their hands as they talked quietly and laughed.

 

The noise outside was a low murmur. Couples were pressed intimately close against the cushions to shelter from the freezing breeze of Moscow’s winter air.

 

The heady aroma of steaming food wafted across the terrace, and Viktor turned impressive gazes on the food scattered around the tables. The plates he could see were decorated with a colorful variety. From fried calamari wrapped in fresh greens and dark purple onions, blanketed in a sweet yellow sauce to tender, bloody lamb chops ornamented with eggplant purée, tomato, and creamy wine sauces, the restaurant was certainly merited with a selection of fancy foods.

 

“It smells so good,” Yuuri moaned and then blushed, turning an abashed gaze on Viktor.

 

The Russian man laughed and squeezed his arm.

 

“It certainly does, _solnyshko_ ,” he murmured, “Mmmm, I can’t wait.”

 

The waitress led them to an empty table at the end of the canopy. The lace of the curtains around the table gave them a peek into the starry night outside. It was like a scene out of a French catalog: the Parisian city gleaming below them as they dined before a gilded terrace, trading secrets and warm endearments over wine glasses sloshing with something expensive and fancy.

 

Viktor took a seat in front of Yuuri. Brushing aside the candle placed in the center of the table, he reached out and took one of Yuuri’s hands, stroking the skin of his wrist with his thumb. Viktor ordered a bottle of the first wine on the card and watched the waitress scamper away, blushing madly.

 

“She’s hitting on you,” Yuuri frowned, glaring after her.

 

Viktor pressed a gentle kiss to his knuckles. “She doesn’t hold a candle to your beauty, my _solnyshko_.”

 

“That’s never stopped you before,” Yuuri snapped and then immediately turned mortified eyes on him. “I’m sorry,” he squeaked and pulled his hand away to cover his face.

 

Viktor frowned and scooted forward, letting gentle fingers trail down Yuuri’s cheek. “No. I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve anything Mik- I mean I did to you. I made you feel worthless and unwanted.”

 

Yuuri turned his face into the palm warming his cheek and spoke miserably, “But you’re doing so much for me now. You’re trying to fix things with us…and I just keep pulling us back.”

 

“Healing doesn’t happen overnight, Yuuri,” Viktor whispered softly. “I’m painfully aware of that. You need time to accept things. I understand that, and I want you to know that I’ll be here every step forward and every leap backward. We’ll get through this, wounds and scars and all.”

 

“Thank you,” Yuuri murmured, eyes shining.

 

He looked so beautiful in the candlelight, even if those pretty brown orbs gleamed with tears. He was like a sculpture brought to life. And Viktor was the captivated artist, spending the rest of his life in his studio gazing at something that couldn’t fully be his.

 

Because Yuuri could never truly belong to him when his heart believed it was Mikhail saying all these words.

 

“Alright, this is our newest blend of Rosé wine. Although it’s private-label, the restaurant has a large hand in the blend,” the waitress had returned with a dark pink bottle which she set loudly on the table. Viktor and Yuuri sprang apart at the sound.

 

The waitress was already at work popping the cork off the fancy bottle. She was still blushing. “A new retailer in Italy became mighty famous with his family’s rising vineyard. Um, I forget where in Italy, but…” she trailed off and bit her lip. “Well, anyway...umm….picked an appetizer yet?”

 

Yuuri choked. Viktor let out a surprised noise and scrambled for the menu, wondering if dinners here really passed so fast. The card boasted a long list of random gourmet appetizers, some Viktor couldn’t even imagine what they even were.

 

“Is there anything you’d recommend?” Yuuri asked her pleasantly, probably reading the look of panic on Viktor’s face.

 

“Beef tartare,” the woman answered.

 

The men at the table stared expectantly and waited for her to explain, but the waitress kept pleasantly, ignorantly silent.

 

“Alright,” Viktor finally mumbled and watched as she nodded and walked away.

 

“When I pictured gourmet dining, I expected the staff to be sophisticated and morbidly silent,” Yuuri murmured across from him.

 

Viktor laughed. “I didn’t even expect fine dining. No wonder the reservation was so difficult to get. And perhaps this is her first day?”

 

Yuuri huffed. “Unlikely. She seemed flustered. You remember I used to do the same to you when we first met. God, is that what I looked like?”

 

He seemed so distraught that Viktor couldn’t help but laugh. “Really? I don’t remember that. I wish I did, though. You must have been so cute!”

 

Yuuri smiled, eyes far away and trapped in memories Viktor didn’t have. “I still don’t know what you saw in me, a dime-a-dozen ballet dancer who didn’t even make it far.”

 

Viktor reached across the table to take his hand again. “I’ve seen you dance, _solnyshko_. You are anything but ‘dime-a-dozen’.”

 

Yuuri shook his head, amused. “It’s true, though. I am just another amateur ballet dancer. But maybe I could’ve achieved more…” Yuuri trailed off and bit his lip, eyes downcast on the black table cloth. “I just had to get sick.”

 

His voice was so pained, so full of dreams and aspirations that could never be. Viktor’s heart twisted in his chest for the Japanese man suffering so much.

 

The man across from him was so strong, filled with such determination that Viktor couldn’t help but admire his strength.

 

But his beauty was like Atlas burdened with the weight of the world. There was something so lonely about his trials. He seemed to crumble inside himself as the world pressed down on him. And just when the world’s weight seemed a sliver more bearable, just when he got a firmer grasp, something rumbled and made it slip away. Catching it again and again was getting harder and harder.

 

Viktor wondered how Yuuri could face so much and still not give in and let the weight of the world crush him.

 

“Maybe you didn’t quite make it to the Bolshoi,” he whispered, tracing the lines on Yuuri’s palm, “But I see you everyday teaching the children to dance. I see the warmth and the pride behind your eyes everytime they get something right. I see the wonder and the amazement in _their_ eyes as they see you dance for them. And it’s so beautiful. _You’re_ so beautiful.”

 

Yuuri’s eyes softened. “Thank you, Mikhail,” He whispered and laid a sweet kiss on Viktor’s fingers.

 

The action sent pleasant tingles up Viktor’s arm and he shivered at the feel of it. The Japanese man smiled at the action.

 

“Shall we toast to a wonderful date?” Yuuri laughed, reaching for the glass of pink wine. Viktor nodded and gripped the stem of his own.

 

The clink of crystal was lost in the quiet din inside the canopied terrace, but Viktor heard it as a promise. A new beginning. A better chapter.

 

Yuuri coughed after his first sip, eyebrows drawing adorably and confusedly together. He let out a noise of disgust and turned an aghast look at the rose-colored wine in his glass. “Well, it’s quite…”

 

“Sweet,” Viktor finished, lips twisting around the flavor. It was very fruity. “Like strawberry,” he mused.

 

“It’s more of a summer type of wine,” Yuuri laughed, setting down his glass.

 

Viktor blushed. “Sorry. I just picked whatever was first on the menu.”

 

Yuuri smiled gently. “Well we are on the Summer Terrace, ‘even though it’s winter right now’,” he mocked the cheery tone of the waitress, grin widening.

 

Viktor laughed and set his glass down. “Ugh. I chose the wrong restaurant to bring you to.”

 

“Nonsense. This place is very beautiful and I’m sure the food is lovely. Besides,” Yuuri gripped the bottle of wine by its base and turned it to read the label, “they have this fancy, private-label Sangiovese Rosé wine from a rising retailer. ‘Alexander Vineyard Collection’,” he read.

 

Viktor froze.

 

_Aleksandr._

 

Shattering glass. The screech of metal on metal as two cars collided at high velocity.

 

Aleksandr choking and gasping for air as blood filled his lungs and his throat.

 

The scream of a flat-lining monitor. Squealing wheels as the stretcher was rolled down the hall. The flash of white as Aleksandr’s shrouded body disappeared out of sight.

 

Pain.

 

Darkness.

 

“Mikhail?”

 

Viktor looked up to see Yuuri’s confused eyes searching him. He set the bottle down gently and reached for the Russian man.

 

“Is something wrong?”

 

Viktor smiled through the cracking in his heart. “Everything’s fine, _Solnyshko_. Sorry. It must’ve been the aftertaste of the wine. Left something bitter in my throat.”

 

He could see that Yuuri didn’t believe him but the other man didn’t push, just searched him with too-observant eyes.

 

“Alright,” he murmured quietly and sank back in his seat.

 

Guilt flooded through Viktor’s chest at the defeated expression on his face.

 

He wanted Yuuri to trust him, but he just _couldn’t_ tell him about Aleksandr. That would mean coming clean and admitting that he wasn’t in fact Mikhail. And he couldn’t do that. Not yet.

Soon, though.

 

The tittering footsteps of the waitress sounded nearby and Viktor relaxed. For once, he was relieved at her presence.

 

She set down a long, white plate before them. In the center of it, a stretch of raw meat embedded with capers and herbs was pierced by soft Russian chips. In the corner of the plate, a small bowl held an egg yolk sprinkled with seasonings.

 

“Thank you,” Viktor murmured to her. “Give us just a few moments? We haven’t decided what to order.” He sent her a wink and she let out a strangled noise before leaving.

 

Yuuri gave him an unimpressed look before reaching out for one of the chips. He chewed around it thoughtfully. “It’s raw.”

 

Viktor chuckled. “I think it’s supposed to be, love. Is it good though?”

 

***

**8:59 PM**

 

“I want to know everything about you, Yuuri. What kind of place did you grow up in? Was there a girl you liked?” Viktor was pleasantly tipsy after his third glass of pink wine from a bottle graced with Aleksandr’s name printed in gold on the label.

 

Across from him, Yuuri was sporting a permanent blush in his cheeks, eyes glittering with alcohol. “Mikhail. You already know everything about me. We were married for two years.”

 

Viktor shook his head. _Not Mikhail_. “Didn’t I say that we were starting over? These are the kind of questions asked on a first date, Yuuri.”

 

Yuuri raised an eyebrow and laughed. “Fine. We’ll do this your way. But not that last question. That is definitely not a first-date question.”

 

Viktor smiled and leaned his cheek against his palm, watching the warmth of the candlelight glow on Yuuri’s skin. It danced in those gorgeous brown eyes that Viktor always drowned in, lost in a sea of burgundy brown.

 

“You asked me where I grew up?” Yuuri’s eyebrows drew together in thought. “Well, I was born and raised in Hasetsu, Kyushu in Japan, a castle-town by the sea. Hmm, the castle isn’t so much a castle as a facade with a ninja house inside-”

 

Viktor’s cheek slid out from his palm and he blinked, astonished. “Really? Ninjas?”

 

Yuuri laughed, blush darkening across his cheeks.

 

“I’ve never seen a ninja before,” Viktor mumbled, fingering the silverware in front of him.

 

“Well of course you wouldn’t have,” Yuuri smiled, “They’re _ninjas_. Anyway. Hasetsu used to have a number of hot spring inns. Before I left, many had gone under, and my family’s was the only one remaining. Yu-topia Katsuki.”

 

“Amazing,” Viktor breathed, imagining the feeling of soaking in a hot spring bigger than any tub.

 

“It is,” Yuuri agreed. “I would sit in the onsen for so long after ballet practices. The hot water does wonders for bruised and aching muscles. Sometimes afterward, I’d get a pork cutlet bowl for dinner. Usually after a successful recital or competition, though.”

 

“A pork cutlet bowl?” Viktor questioned, watching how bright Yuuri’s eyes gleamed after saying the name of his favorite dish.

 

“Yes. Katsudon. It’s a dish with breaded pork, egg, and vegetables on a bed of rice. It’s really better than I can describe. Just one bowl has so many calories, though, so I had to limit myself to only one on special occasions, or I’d gain so much weight. I’ve tried so many restaurants here, but none have ever come close to my mom’s recipe.”

 

“I hope I can visit your family in Japan and soak in the hot springs and eat pork cutlet bowls,” Viktor murmured, smiling when Yuuri nodded with bright eyes.

 

“I miss them a lot, my family,” Yuuri whispered, and the smile slowly slipped off his face. “I was planning a vacation there if my audition for the Bolshoi went well. We’d have had the time and money to travel…But then I collapsed.” Yuuri’s voice was so soft and pained. “I can’t go to Japan and visit my family. Kyushu doesn’t have the medical technology advanced enough to help me if something were to go wrong. And I can’t do that to my family...I can’t hurt them like that.”

 

Viktor squeezed his eyes shut. Yuuri’s voice was so palpably pained. He drew Yuuri’s hand into his own and laced their fingers together, offering a gentle squeeze to the broken man.

 

“I’m sorry, Yuuri. Those words aren’t enough. I wish there were more words to express how I feel. Even the Russian language isn’t enough. But I know that you’ll get through this. I promise that you will see your family again. I will take you there,” Viktor promised.

 

Yuuri’s face softened, but his eyes still held agony. Both of them knew it was a promise Viktor couldn’t keep. Yuuri was dying too fast for even Russia’s advanced technology. And this time there wasn’t another heart that could be given.

 

But Yuuri smiled anyway and answered with a soft, “Alright.”

 

***

**9:54 PM**

 

“Well it certainly won’t get the best Yelp review from me, but I’m sure the positives will outweigh the negatives,” Yuuri teased as they walked slowly to the front door.

 

“Hmm, if they even have positive reviews,” Viktor murmured, squeezing Yuuri closer into his body. He squeezed the hand intertwined with his own.

 

Yuuri turned in his arms as they reached the door. “Oh they have many positive reviews,” he breathed lowly and released Viktor’s hand to cup his face. The Japanese man stepped even closer.

 

Viktor could feel the warmth of his breath on his skin, smell the cloyingly sweet wine. It was heady and toxic and the Russian man had to stop his eyes from rolling back into his head.

 

Yuuri chuckled and tilted his head, laying tender kisses on the skin of his jaw, under his chin, the pulse point of his neck.

 

Viktor groaned lowly and pulled him closer. He sank his fingers into the silken black hair, tilting his head back for more kisses. “Vixen,” he breathed and tugged Yuuri up, pressing their foreheads together.

 

“You haven’t seen anything yet,” Yuuri smiled dangerously and crushed his lips to Viktor’s.

 

The Russian man let out a quiet whine and gripped Yuuri’s hips, pulling him utterly, impossibly closer.

 

The kiss was fiery, passionate, thrilling. Flames licked up his spine and he shuddered deliciously against Yuuri, completely willing to surrender himself to the burning. Their lips moved gloriously together, weakening Viktor’s knees. He felt like a teenage boy again, ready to faint at the toxic feeling of being debauched.

 

Yuuri sank his teeth into Viktor’s lip. The answering yelp granted Yuuri better access and he licked into Viktor’s mouth.

 

The Russian man moaned quietly. He could taste Yuuri now so fully. The sweet wine they shared earlier. The sweet and spicy tang of the honey-mustard sauce he had with his dinner. The citrus flavor of oranges.

 

He groaned against Yuuri’s mouth and moved, shoving Yuuri up against the front door of his house.

 

The Japanese man let out a soft cry, broken by Viktor crashing their lips together again. His wandering hands found the soft fabric of Yuuri’s pants and he stroked along his leg and his hip before gripping Yuuri’s thigh and hiking his leg up to wrap around Viktor’s waist.

 

Yuuri whimpered, head sliding back to rest against the door.

 

Viktor moved his lips down Yuuri’s neck, licking and sucking the skin into his mouth. The salt of sweat burned against his tongue. He nibbled the soft skin beneath his lips, smelled the glorious mix of musk and cologne.

 

“Mikhail,” Yuuri whispered. “Oh,” he breathed as Viktor’s lips found a spot where his neck met his shoulder that made delicious shivers wrack his spine. His eyes rolled with pleasure. “Mikhail...we need… to go inside. Can’t stay out here.” He threaded his fingers in Viktor’s silver hair and stroked his cheek.

 

“Mikahil.”

 

Viktor nosed up the skin of his throat to his cheek and pressed a lingering kiss to Yuuri’s temple.

 

“ _Solnyshko_ ,” he breathed and pressed his forehead to Yuuri’s.

 

“Will you come inside with me?” Yuuri murmured, voice low, sultry, challenging. His brown eyes were dark, almost black with lust.

 

He was a succubus and Viktor was his prey.

 

And he wanted to be devoured.

 

Yuuri threaded their fingers together and pulled Viktor along with him into the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What. Was. That. At. The. End?! I don't know, buuuut it happened!!! We are surprised every step of the way with these two.
> 
> Ok this chapter took forever to come out. I am really really really sorry about that. I got hit with a brick of writer's block and it killed my momentum with this story. I think the next few chapters are gonna be a bit shorter. I've been pumping out 6K word ones, but I think the next few will be a bit shorter 2K-3K words. That just means I'll be able to update more since it won't take as much time to write. 
> 
> I'm making them shorter because I have a new fic idea in the works. A little mystery. The city where I live was under threat for a while since the beginning of March from a serial bomber. He injured a lot of people over the course of a few weeks. The whole thing inspired me to research a ton about serial bombers and then I just needed an outlet to seort through all the information. So that's part of the foundation for the fic and it will definitely involve Viktor and Yuuri in some way, so look for that coming soon...
> 
> These next couple chapters are it, people. Fluff and angst. Angst and fluff before the really heartbreak starts :(:(:(
> 
> Thanks for sticking with this story and the author who can't stick to her own darn schedule!!! You guys are awesome!!!! <3
> 
> Also that bottle of wine was inspired by a real bottle of Sangiovese. When I was looking up pictures, the name caught my eye and i couldn't resist XD  
> http://www.shopwinedirect.com/alexander-valley-vineyard-sonoma-rose-of-sangiovese-2017.html

**Author's Note:**

> Privyet- Hello  
> Sasha- Term of endearment for 'Aleksandr' (Like Vitya for Viktor)  
> Ya Lyublyu Tebya- I Love You  
> Zatknis- Shut up!
> 
> This story is actually based on the film "All About Love," directed by Daniel Lu. The movie is so beautiful and so painful to watch, but the story and detail work in tandem to give audiences the message to not take things for granted. Enjoy the moments in life while they're there. You never know when you'll lose something you never really paid attention to in the first place...
> 
> The title also comes from the song "Woodwork" by Sleeping at Last. I won't put the lyrics here, but if you guys are interested, you can look them up. I think the song fits so well with the theme of this story and can be played while you're reading.
> 
> Break Us New has 3 chapters. The last 2 should both be up by the end of December or early January.
> 
> I really enjoy getting comments:) They're very helpful and motivational to all authors of all the stories you read here.
> 
> Just a reminder that this story is tagged with trigger content.


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